I don't usually listen to news chat shows, whatever they're called - political comment or opinion or something. People from different parties telling us how they can manage a rip-off economy better than the others, while newspaper columnists tell them what the billionaire press barons expect of them.
Clicking through the channels today I heard mention that more workdays are lost through strikes of late than since the early eighties, you know the Thatcher Francis of Assissi period. I lingered a while.
Right, so what is behind all this conflict? Why are workers in precarious jobs risking those jobs by striking? Was that what the pundits were going to ask and discuss?
No, the question was, is it time for more legislation to stop people withdrawing their labour? Good old reliable BBC, the Tory Party at the microphone. I cursed the boss class's propagandists and moved on.
On ITN news I encountered someone called Lucy Manning explaining workfare to the newsreaders in the studio. She quoted growling Grayling; the opponents of unpaid labour were left wing extremists out to wreck the economy. Then she told us the taxpayers' opinion; better to work for nothing than sit at home doing nothing. Those, you see, are the alternatives from the viewing platform of the well-heeled and securely employed. I'm assuming that Ms. Manning didn't interview all taxpayers before appointing herself their spokesperson. Maybe she made the whole thing up. I'm certain she didn't interview the many people on jobseekers pittance who pay, via Value Added Tax, the highest proportion of income of all taxpayers.
I wonder who feeds her the crap she tries to feed us. A government spin doctor perhaps?