Be Excellent To Each Other

To be fair Cavey, either get off your high horse and actually 'speak ill of the dead', or shut the fuck up.

Standing next to the grave, grinning like a loon jiggling the coins and talking about how you could really go off on one about the guy in the box is far worse.

And I speak as someone who will happily speak ill of the dead.

Crikey, a bit harsh, but fair enough.

I'm now tempted to ascribe Crow with sainthood, just to see if Cavey explodes

I wouldn't mind but I haven't mentioned or even alluded to Bob Crow once, just the above political stuff. It was just a daft (Kleek!) in joke about bloody fruit machines. Still, that's me fecking told, eh.

Bloody cliques. I blame Thatcher.

just behave.. stop poking Cavey

Add something to the conversation or don't bother next time, yeah?

Man, I wish Grim… was adding something to the conversation.

Get nutted

What is going on here? Man, I have far too many people on ignore for people not to quote properly.

And I thought that I was in a bad mood today!

Also you people slagging Bob Crow off aren't thinking about what happens when he paints his face like Gene Simmons off of Kiss and comes back from the dead (not in that order) and kicks all your arses are you?

Robot mother fucking trains!

Bob Crow died. Some people are more left wing than others. Some things were misinterpreted. Some jokes were misinterpreted. After that, Man Sausages. Then you asked this.

Not really very much to say.

I stand by what I said. And I feel I added more to the conversation than Cavey (or the grand complexity of your 'a deserved death' comment ). I've no strong opinion on this subject, hence why I didn't post.

But it became a really interesting back and forth (GY has been fascinatingly convincing but Cavey keep saying 'I could butt in, but I won't' every other post jarred me. Bare in mind I normally think Cavey adds to the conversation greatly, so would appreciate his views. (Aside: Of course, he's normally wrong but interestingly wrong )

On reflection, what I said was dickish, but I was just aiming for a 'shit or get off the pot' post to nudge him into actually saying what he thought, rather than being as harsh as I was. Sorry about that Cavey. There's been a death in the family, so I guess I'm over sensitive in this area at the minute. I'll shut up.

Anyhow, I've caused far more derailment than I bemoaned. Ignore me. Sorry Y'all.

Well, I LOLed.

Hey, no worries man (sorry to hear of your loss as well). By the same token I almost invariably enjoy your posts and wish you'd do more, especially science type stuff.

But hey, "...he's normally wrong but interestingly wrong" - I'm so taking that.

Bob Crow was a fantastic bloke, always loved to see him on Question Time, or hear him on the radio - a true man of conviction who believed absolutely and passionately in the right of the working man and woman to organise and strengthen themselves and to never allow themselves to be browbeaten.

It's been said that his members were amongst the last of the well-paid working class in London, and on his watch the membership of the RMT pretty much doubled, which says it all really.

A genuine working class hero and a terrible loss.

In Life he was a tosser, £145,000 PA and he still sponged of the state with a council house, you don't have to be a right wing scumbag to see what a champagne socialist he was.

Never understood how union members tolerate the life styles and pay of their leaders

RMT workers will have to change, look the London Underground, drivers on stupid money for doing a job that in many cases can be done by a computer, won't be long before a decent government breaks them as people are sick of them and other entitled pricks like airport workers holding the UK to ransom with strikes

what? He was a cunt. Dying didn't suddenly change that.

I don't know much about him, I don't care about where he lived or anything.

I do know that his "job" was to get the best conditions for the workers in his union. I am pretty sure he was good at doing that. I don't think many people would disagree with that would they?

They might not agree with him doing that, but given that he was tasked with doing that, he did a bloody good job.

Malc

Oh, and there are rules about living in council houses, and presumably he wasn't breaking them, so if you don't like the fact that he lived in a council house, then blame the rules, don't blame him?

Malc

No, see, it's fine when rich people use the rules to their advantage, but when fat working class people do it they're getting above their station and must be killed with pies.

Thread won.

He was rich and he wasn't working class.

And he quite possibly was killed with pies

Now he's a pie in the sky.

Quite so. It is nothing sort of obscene hypocrisy to take up a council house when you're on £150k for your "job" (I use the term advisedly), paying subsidised rent, when the very people you purport to support have to go without? And for what? Working class credentials (so called and fooling no-one bar the incredibly stupid), "look at me, I only live in a council house [on my six figure salary with benefits], guv'nor"...? Sorry, it's enough to make me want to puke.

'Thread won', my hairy arse.

This is indeed true. I'd argue that it's so hard to define what's working class and what isn't nowadays that the names practically mean nothing any more (except for the strange romantic view / sense of pride that some people seem to have of "being working class").

I'd say "not being on £150k per year plus benefits" is a reasonable starting point.

Is it all about money / jobs, though, or is about a mindset?

He sure didn't sound like some Eaton cunt.

Awesome! Lets do the working class debate

I have to get up everyday and go to work, otherwise I wouldn't be able to support myself or my family.
I'm working class.

I certainly don't think it's mindset - I can think/pretend I'm upper class all I want, but it won't change anything. I'm not.

Being a white collar professional person (on TV all the time and wielding huge political power, costing the country and economy many billions), earning £150,000/year, is not compatible with being working class.

Having a working class background is something else, and fair comment; I am myself in this category. But I'm not going to rock up at the Working Man's Club in my spanking Porsche and regale everyone there about how working class I am, or try and get a council house. (And I'd wager I've seen far more manual work in the last 5 years, 12 months, fortnight etc. than Bob Crow - I was heaving stuff around a building site all day yesterday and sweating my arse off).

You're working class until you choose not to be.

Guv.

I'd imagine most people view it as something they're almost born into, or how they start off their lives. So if someone works as a labourer, and through graft and hard work makes something of themselves (in a fiscal and influence sense), they'd see themselves as working class and be considered as such. If a rich trust fund kid did the same then for all the kudos they might receive, they'd still be upper middle class or whatever.

Ask Jarvis Cocker.

That's pretty much me, there. Unlike most here, including our would be revolutionaries, at 16 I was working in a factory as an apprentice sheet metal worker and I took it from there (and believe you me, factories in the early 80s were very different places than they are today, well, those that are left post-Labour).

If someone asks me, I tell them I have a working class background. But I'm sorry, money does come into it - living in a very large country house with acres of gardens, driving a nice car, wife not working etc does not equate to 'working class'. Were I to claim this, I would look absurd. So did Bob Crow, Scargill and all the rest of 'em.

Yes, it's possible to move class throughout your life...

I hate agreeing with this objectionable twat, but

Already dealt with that one.
Fuck knows how you can even follow this discussion, you've got that many people on ignore.

It strikes me that the people most offended by his hypocrisy or supposed hypocrisy aren't the people who should conceivably have any real cause to be offended by it i.e. those he represented. By contrast they seemed happy that he was able to effectively fight their corner despite being much better off than them.

He doesn't like to mention it though.

Honest Question: Did he have a nice council house? I would assume a council house would be much worse than one he could easily afford.

I would posit that if he is representing a work force that primarily lives in council houses, then living in one as well, helps him better understand and represent them.

It seems to me a guy that gets paid 150k but still lives in the kind of environment you live will represent you better than one who doesn't - and far better than Transport Commissioner Bob Kiley, who makes a supposed £540,000, and doesn't (I assume) live anywhere like you - and doesn't have your interests at heart.

Why would they care?

Question: If you took away the apparent hypocrisy of Crow's lifestyle, in terms of the council house etc, do people think his actions are honourable? Trying to get a better deal for the workers he represents, who seemed to like him. Shouldn't the aim of work be that it does pay, and not pay just enough to eat bread and gruel while the CEOs smoke Cuban cigars and eat caviar (stereotype alert, but you know what I mean).

The ridiculous myth peddled by the super rich that they just worked harder and weren't at all lucky can't be allowed to stand.

(and yes, I know that some of the super rich did get their via genius, but that's likely a minority; the idea that the likes of Roman Abramovich represent the pinnacle of humanity is utterly repugnant)

I think you'll find that most Londoners hated him due to how much of a ball ache tube strikes are, and how little he cared about the affect of his actions on the millions it effected. The hypocrisy is a byline.

However, he was doing his job and caring about the people we was employed to care about, which is fair enough. The majority of commuters thought he was a cunt, which is also fair enough.

Also, he didn't get paid £150k. He got paid £99k plus his pension and a bonus. £99k a year is going to get you around a £400k mortgage, which is fuck all in London.

Not sure what point i'm making, but he didn't earn £150k.

I quite like tube strikes. They break up the monotony of a lifetime of commuting.

That's not even remotely true.