Let 'Em Eat Cake

From the Cyprus Mail we have a story that industrial action is being taken over a dispute regarding outsourcing jobs abroad:

Pancyprian Federation of Labour (PEO), Cyprus Workers’ Union (SEK) and EDEK’s DEOK are striking “because (J&P, Athena and Cybarco) companies’ outsourcing of the marina works violates the collective agreement (resulting) in unfair personal contracts for workers”, PEO’s district construction secretary Andreas Neophytou said yesterday.

And the response?

Employer’s Federation OEV has condemned the action, with assistant director general Michalis Antoniou yesterday pointing out that: “EU workers have every right to work here just as Cypriots also have full rights to work anywhere in the other 26 EU member states.”

Hmm, now that dismissive attitude sounds familiar:

Lord Mandelson enraged unions and Labour MPs last night by accusing wildcat strikers of "protectionism" and claiming they could turn the recession into a full-blown depression.

The Business Secretary inflamed the dispute over foreign workers by suggesting that protesters could go and work elsewhere in Europe if they were unhappy.

The 3 Fs

Whatever one thinks of Peter Mandelson, he is (allegedly) very good at what he does politically. His demolition of Andrew Marr was great telly and a case in point.

His book on New Labour: The Third Man, however, going by the extracts in the Times (from the Guardian*) is a big disappointment:

Senior cabinet members joked three Fs at centre of election campaign should be 'futile', 'finished' and 'fucked'

The disclosure in the Times lifts the lid on an open secret at Westminster over the past year: that the vast majority of members of the former cabinet had believed Brown was leading them to a catastrophic defeat. Mandelson told David Miliband on Remembrance Day last year that Labour could not win with Brown if nothing changed, as the then foreign secretary raised fears of a major defeat.

Is that it? Mandelson in his 'warts 'n' all' book merely confirms what we already knew? That Brown was, and is, unfit for high office.

Thanks but we kinda worked that out for ourselves.

* I don't pay for the Times online because paying for newspapers doesn't mean better journalism, the cover price usually only pays for the paper, the printing and the distribution. Advertising does the rest. It's a point of principle I suppose on my part against nonsense like this.