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Now is the Winter of Our Discontent

by Toby Young
2 December 2022 11:38 AM

Brits will be hammered by a wave of strikes every day until Christmas in a new ‘winter of discontent’, as Britain is plunged further into chaos. The Daily Mail has more.

Rail workers, including Eurostar staff, nurses, ambulance staff, teachers, security guards handling cash, cleaners, porters, driving examiners, rural payments officers and civil servants are planning action that will affect every day over advent.

Millions will have their lives disrupted by the coordinated walkouts, which are set to cripple essential public services in the run up to Christmas.

Of particular concern is a NHS Christmas walkout on December 20th, which some fear could bring the health service to a standstill.

Government estimates seen by the Times suggest the rail industry alone will lose up to £260 million because of the strikes.

Meanwhile, the hospitality industry has warned that industrial action will cost it £1.5 billion in lost sales as people avoid going out to pubs, bars and restaurants.

Hospitality U.K. chief Kate Nicholls tweeted today: “Hospitality businesses don’t have time to play with and losing the busiest Christmas trading week to rail strikes could be final for many.”

Steve Brine, chairman of the Commons health committee, said this winter’s planned action was potentially “more concerning” as new anti-strike laws have made it harder to legally call strikes.

This suggested union barons were more determined than ever to shut down Britain, he said.

Mr. Brine told Sky News: “We keep hearing that this is a repeat of the winter of discontent of the 1970s. In some ways it is not, but in some ways actually it is possibly more concerning because of course different industrial dispute legislation since the 1970s has made it harder to reach a strike mechanism trigger ballot.

“The fact that you have so much coordinated strike action now suggests that there is deep unhappiness with levels of pay and with some conditions within parts of the health service.” Meanwhile, simultaneous walk-outs by nurses, ambulance drivers and hospital staff could see hospitals fight to keep even basic services running.

Three unions – GMB, Unite and Unison – are discussing a co-ordinated strike date, says the Guardian, with talks between union bosses and ministers said to have taken place about how to “avoid loss of life”. The Royal College of Nursing has already confirmed members will strike on December 20th, and on December 15.

The Fire Brigades Union will ballot its members on December 5th for strike action over a pay dispute, while secondary schools in Aberdeen will close for pupils in some years next Thursday in years S1 to S4 due to walkouts.

Around 188 staff working for brewery Greene King are set to strike next month in a row over pay. Currently, no date has been set for a Tube strike this month but one may still happen.

Worth reading in full.

Meanwhile, there’s no sign the Government is getting any kind of grip on the unfolding chaos – other than the endless seeking of ‘compromises’ with their most implacable enemies.

Little wonder, then, that Labour saw its majority shoot up in the Chester by-election. Samantha Dixon, the new MP for the city, won 17,309 of the 28,541 votes cast, beating Liz Wardlaw, the Tory candidate, into a distant second with 6,335 votes. Labour increased its share of the vote from 49.6% to 61.2%, it’s best-ever performance in the city. According to Christopher Hope in the Telegraph, if such a swing was replicated at a General Election it would be enough for Sir Keir Starmer to win a majority.

Those who want to see Laurence Olivier delivering the famous speech in Richard III can do so by clicking here.

Stop Press: I told Mark Steyn on GB News last night that the only time the machinery of the state swings into action is when someone is accused of a ‘microagression’ or ‘hate speech’.

'You would hope that out of this chaos would emerge someone with a backbone, a natural leader.'

Toby Young joins Mark Steyn to discuss whether now is the time for an alternative right-of-centre party. pic.twitter.com/I2koQCEycB

— GB News (@GBNEWS) December 1, 2022
Tags: ChaosChester By-ElectionRishi SunakStrikesWinter of Discontent

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22 Comments
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steve_z
steve_z
3 years ago

“Yet another nail in the coffin of the zero-Covid policy.”

But Devi Sridhar wrote a book about where everyone went wrong (not early enough and not hard enough presumably)

14
0
Hopeless - "TN,BN"
Hopeless - "TN,BN"
3 years ago
Reply to  steve_z

Par for the course. She’s one of Schwab’s “Young World Leaders”, along with Trudeau and some other not-so-young half-baked tyro despots, and it thus follows that everything she comes out with is so much ordure.

10
0
stewart
stewart
3 years ago
Reply to  steve_z

And by all accounts the WHO is working on a treaty to remedy that exact problem so that “next time” they can go in early and hard.

3
0
Rogerborg
Rogerborg
3 years ago
Reply to  stewart

Are these the accounts from anyone credible? I’ve asked to see the receipts on this one before, and the evidence didn’t support the claim.

0
0
ImpObs
ImpObs
3 years ago
Reply to  Rogerborg

EU council: https://archive.ph/j0O0e

actually it’s the WHO infographic, EU council only published it

more links in here: https://corbettreport.substack.com/p/globalists-release-timeline-for-health

Last edited 3 years ago by ImpObs
1
0
Hopeless - "TN,BN"
Hopeless - "TN,BN"
3 years ago

Not surprising. I was waiting for something to be sent to me from China, but the shipment tracking came to a full stop. Further enquiries with the China end informed me that the carrier’s business and warehouse had been locked down by the provincial government, for an initial period of 10 days, or perhaps longer.

3
0
TheyLiveAndWeLockdown
TheyLiveAndWeLockdown
3 years ago
Reply to  Hopeless - "TN,BN"

or someone is desperately trying to FUBAR global trade.

11
0
DevonBlueBoy
DevonBlueBoy
3 years ago
Reply to  TheyLiveAndWeLockdown

A welcome re-appearance of ‘FUBAR’; it’s been away for far too long!

2
0
marebobowl
marebobowl
3 years ago
Reply to  TheyLiveAndWeLockdown

Exactly.

0
0
crisisgarden
crisisgarden
3 years ago

I just simply don’t believe any aspect of this story. China has a Covid crisis because the CCP wants or needs a Covid crisis. The Chinese leadership is too smart and too savvy to cause economic damage because of a relatively minor outbreak of a now exceptionally weak and insignificant respiratory virus. They’re playing the same games now as the West has been playing for two years.. Why?

41
0
RW
RW
3 years ago
Reply to  crisisgarden

Because they’re not smart and savvy. On average, people are pretty stupid and they are doing stupid stuff all the time. This includes people whose only relevant skill is CCP-internal politics. Xi has boxed himself in with his Zero COVID strategy. He can’t admit that it was a stupid idea which was bound to end in a dismal failure, hence, he has to press on.

9
0
stewart
stewart
3 years ago
Reply to  crisisgarden

It’s not a small point that China does not really have a national health service. If people need medical attention on mass, they have no where to go.

My default position on China with regards to COVID from day one was that if the population required mass medical attention the CCP was going to be found out for the con job it really is.

The hospitals built in a few days, the armies of people in hazmat suits, it’s all smoke and mirrors. They can do that at a relatively small scale. But they can’t deploy that sort of thing across the country. Not even in their wildest dreams.

So any disease that causes a substantial uptick in those requiring medical care will expose a system in which medical treatment is paid out of pocket and only really available for the well to do. And even for them the system would be badly stretched.

It would basically be a catastrophe for the CCP.

6
0
marebobowl
marebobowl
3 years ago
Reply to  crisisgarden

Because they are part and parcel of the great reset. What were they promised or paid?

0
0
Old Bill
Old Bill
3 years ago

Disney world and the covid scamdemic seem to have an awful lot in common to my mind.

19
0
TheyLiveAndWeLockdown
TheyLiveAndWeLockdown
3 years ago
Reply to  Old Bill

One of them is a place with lots of rules and uniformed people spouting things only children could believe and the other is Disneyland.

25
0
Rogerborg
Rogerborg
3 years ago
Reply to  TheyLiveAndWeLockdown

My understanding is that the Magic Kingdom is a happy hunting ground for ruthless predators, and that the harm done to their child victims is hushed up.

So, yes, same-same.

4
0
Emerald Fox
Emerald Fox
3 years ago
Reply to  Old Bill

Xi has a ‘special relationship’ with Disney.

pooh.jpg
2
0
Richard Austin
Richard Austin
3 years ago

Well, if you create a virus and not a way of stopping it, you get no Mickey Mouse. What kind of idiots create a bug and do not know how to stop it? The Chinese and Tony Fauci.

11
0
marebobowl
marebobowl
3 years ago
Reply to  Richard Austin

The Americans were involved in this bioweapon.

0
0
Marcus Aurelius knew
Marcus Aurelius knew
3 years ago

NOT. AGAIN.

5
0
stewart
stewart
3 years ago

The zero-covid policy is one that regards the population like a herd of cattle and the state is like the farmer. In such a society, your body is not yours, it belongs to the state and it can test you, isolate you, vaccinate you at any time it decides. You are quite literally a slave of the state.

And that is what our overlords aspire to for us as well.

14
0
Rogerborg
Rogerborg
3 years ago

Last I checked, these “health” measures are being imposed in provinces and newish cities with a high proportion of Cantonese and Hakka speakers, and mobile migrant workers.

I’d suspect this may be their ruling class reminding uppity vassal groups that all comrades are equal, but Mandarin comrades are more equal than others.

7
0
J4mes
J4mes
3 years ago

Have they got round to locking down chickens yet?

5
0
Martin Frost
Martin Frost
3 years ago

Zero Covid was always a pipedream. Interesting that those who have practicised it the hardest are experiencing the biggest waves now. What are these authoritarian leaders seeking to prove exactly? That their strategy will work if only it is applied long and hard enough? 40 years to eradicate smallpox and it still emerges from time to time. Personally I blame the reverence accorded to this handful of fringe scientists (aka as THE science”) by a fawning media. For christ sake most of them are not even qualified to comment on these issues.

Last edited 3 years ago by Martin Frost
6
0
civilliberties
civilliberties
3 years ago

May as well go to the doc and get a prescription for deja-vu

3
0
huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
3 years ago

That’s another downer. Well it would be if I was planning on going to China and Disney land. Fortunately I’m planning neither, so I couldn’t give a F.

4
0
David Beaton
David Beaton
3 years ago

Disney closing? Lucky Chinese!

4
0
Cristi.Neagu
Cristi.Neagu
3 years ago

They’re getting ready to release a new virus upon the world, mark my words.

2
0
Lockdown Sceptic
Lockdown Sceptic
3 years ago

European Energy Policy
https://rumble.com/vxvwpi-european-energy-policy.html?mref=6zof&mc=dgip3&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=tonyheller&ep=1

Perhaps Europe shouldn’t have planned their energy future around the rantings of a truant teenager?
Tony Heller

Next Events

Tuesday 22nd March 2pm to 3pm
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Junction A332 Windsor Rd/ 
A330 Winkfield Road  
ASCOT SL5 7UL

Stand in the Park Sundays from 10am – make friends & keep sane 

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(Cockpit Path car park free on Sunday) 
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Telegram http://t.me/astandintheparkbracknell

3
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PeteBell
PeteBell
3 years ago

Closing Disney land? 3 hearty cheers for the disease, or rather the reactionto it! ANYTHING that adversely affects the crass Disney franchise can’t be all bad.

1
0
marebobowl
marebobowl
3 years ago

What is up with China? Is China willing to let its workforce starve to death, locked up in their homes. What about China’s goal to become the world leader? Surely you cannot achieve that goal when your entire country is locked up. I smell a big rat.

0
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