The first ever post which I wrote on this blog in 2007 was about Peter Mandelson. It was rather derisory. At that stage, Mandy was out of Government . He is now, effectively, running the country.
Mandelson has condemned the forthcoming strike action by the CWU as "political suicide."
It is a measure of the gulf between the Government and the postal workers that they do not seem to realise that in seemingly condoning Royal Mail's determination to smash the strike ( today the Observer reports 30,000 extra workers being signed up to act as scabs) and the efforts of the union on behalf of their members that they could also be accused of a death wish.
Billy Hayes, hardly one of the most militant trade union leaders, has made comments which of course have been misconstrued by the right-wing media . His point that he was "stronger than Arthur Scargill" was not made to be macho. I think Billy is one of the least egotistical trade union leaders I have ever met.
He was simply pointing out that a 76 per cent vote in favour of industrial action gave him a mandate which Scargill did not arguably have when he called the miners out in 1984.
But battle lines have now been drawn up and the CWU is standing firm - as it should.
At our AGM of the West Yorkshire LRC yesterday we agreed to do all we could to support the CWU locally. On Tuesday at our Branch Labour party meeting, we agreed to donate money to help the strikers.
The tragedy is of course that it seems inevitable, given the course of events in the last 12 months, that the union will disaffiliate from Labour. It will certainly be a course of action which Billy, an "unreconstructed Bennite" and Labour Party loyalist, will find deeply painful. But is it any wonder?
Last week in Cambridge, a postal worker told us how his pension had been reduced to ashes, wages cut and jobs threatened due to Royal Mail's refusal to listen to union demands . Conciliation has also been ruled out by the Royal Mail bosses who take six-figure salariesand expect the lowest-paid to take the rap.
So now we have the prospect of a re-run of 1984 - the difference being that this time it is a Labour Government opposing the interests of the class it was set up to represent.
I hope ordinary members of the Labour Party will take a very different view. As we did in 1984, when then Leader Neil Kinnock refused to give unconditional backing to the NUM.
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