BBC Newsreaders, Jack London and Scabs.

Image by Caro Wallis via Flickr

The recent strike by BBC newsreaders against losing their guaranteed pensions was as usual Marred (pun intended) by the deterioration in relationships between the 95% of the staff who were solidly behind the strike and those few that crawled in (as usual in the dead of night so that they did not have to cross the picket line) to do what they regarded as their duty.
 Now I have been in a few strikes in my time - in fact as a Union Man I have always supported the cause when the call has been made, though not without reflection on the issues involved. In a career of forty years this probably amounted to a maximum of about seven working days. As related in these pages before, only the loony fringe revel in strikes and most of the people who participate do it either because they are starving, about to be sacked or are trying to correct an injustice hoisted on them by their employer. It is the striker that takes all the risks of being sacked and losing employee benefits, ostracising themselves from friends and family as well as losing their wages and even a gong for services to their country (more of this later).
 No wonder then there is bitterness between the strikebreakers, or blacklegs as I prefer to call them, and those that are making a sacrifice to try and improve their terms of service. Incidentally I have never yet heard of a strikebreaker who has refused the benefits that come along should, and this happens only rarely, industrial action prove to be successful.
 However Fiona Bruce has gone up in my estimation, as I always regarded her as a typical middle class BBC employee who would think it unpatriotic and beneath her to strike. Top marks Fiona - I shall watch the Antiques Roadshow with renewed enthusiasm in the future. Of those that did crawl into work I am not surprised that most of the so called "City Experts" like Robert Peston, Evan Davis and Sarah Montague, none of whom predicted the banking crises, have stuck with their allies in The City.
 Andrew Marr has always crossed the picket line and his lightweight series of books on the History of Britain reflect his prejudices against the working class and his love of the establishment. He also  wrote a damning indictment of Harold Wilson in one of those tomes that the facts did not bear out and was short on any detail such as a good historian should provide (see the blog piece I wrote on Wilson somewhere below).
 Nick Robinson's love of all things Tory ensured he would be loyal to the management's cause and I agree with The Fat Man In the Bathtub's  views on the man who also is a very poor reporter and lucky to be in a job. Andrew Neil is a Thatcher sycophant and a previous Murdoch employee and acted true to form. Johnathan Dimbleby the official pal and biographer of  Prince Charlie,the Serial Adulterer, payed homage as well.  Also I must admit to never hearing of Chris Rogers or Emma Crosby but they also reneged on their colleagues.
 You will notice that I have not used the term, "scab" which I have always thought to be offensive and slightly over the top demotic language. It postdates "blackleg" and it's first use in this sense is allegedly attributed to Jack London a writer I much admire and who turned me into a socialist at a formative age when I read his description of the poverty that existed in London in, "People of the Abyss" when the British Empire was at it's zenith in the Victorian age. I say alleged because although the passage smacks of his fine descriptive writing it has never been truly attributed to his pen - it reads, " After God had finished the rattlesnake, the toad, and the vampire, he had some awful substance left with which he made a scab. A scab is a two-legged animal with a corkscrew soul, a water brain, a combination backbone of jelly and glue. Where others have hearts, he carries a tumor of rotten principles. When a scab comes down the street, men turn their backs and Angels weep in Heaven, and the Devil shuts the gates of hell to keep him out...."
 And whilst I'm at it bollocks to Keith Richard and Mick Jagger who have made fortunes presenting themselves as rebels when they are as false as Jordan's tits and hobnob with the Tory elite and collected their gongs from HM. Which brings me neatly to the fact that in the Civil Service anyone who takes strike action is never awarded a medal and I suppose that those broadcasters will be in the same boat. Not to worry says I gongs are only given to fraudsters and lacky's.

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• BBC's top stars in bitter split over strike (telegraph.co.uk)