Restoration 10:10

      "We need everyone's cooperation in not repeat-buying, to cut out nonessential trips, and to use public transport." Why? Because Grangemouth oil refinery workers are going on strike for 48 hours. Already the panic is setting in. Some service stations have increased their prices of petrol by 6.6p and diesel by 11p. Earlier in the week garage attendants had to start rationing when their customers attempted to buy extra fuel. Are there any reasonable grounds for this hysterical behaviour? Maybe! The Grangemouth plant refines about 210,000 barrels a day. BP said that North Sea oil supplies will be severely disrupted. The strike will cost the UK economy about £50 million a day and it will impact gas and electric bills. According to Alan Duncan the shadow business secretary ‘a prolonged strike would affect us all, with very serious consequences for the oil industry and for petrol prices’. I can understand why some people have an alarmist approach to things. You can’t condemn anyone for becoming irrational in an extreme situation. The terror stricken folks running from the falling Twin Towers in New York had every reason to panic. But, not all panic is justified. The anxious crowds and boisterous customers, who ran on troubled Northern Rock Bank to withdraw their cash, overreacted. The unnamed police officers who shot Jean Charles de Menezes thinking he was a suicide bomber overreacted. The mobs beating up innocent people suspected of penis theft in the Congo are overreacting. Sorry I don’t have to time to explain the Congo situation, it's a 'witchcraft thing'. I'm afraid I have to rush off now. I have to go and fill my car up with petrol. See ya. 

Priminister Gordon Brown refused to bow down to a police strike threat in December 2007. Two months previously the government handled a two day strike by postal workers. Now six months later the nation can debate the rights and wrongs of the teachers strike. A lot of parents must already be making plans to throw a sicky at work on the 24th of April. They will be absent because they have to stay home and look after their kids. Bosses, be warned! But hey, who are we going to blame for this strike. Should we blame the Government? Or Thatcherism? Or the Unions? We could blame the teachers but that might be a bit unfair. Some teachers work 14 hours a day and will lay down their lives for the school kids. One teacher has said that she will not let her class suffer on the 24th. She’s going to give them plenty of home work for the day she’s on strike. I’m sure the kids will appreciate that; not. The total number of strike days in Britain in 2006 rose to 754,500 which was a massive increase on 154,700 recorded in 2005. Some of those strikes will have been justified; like the strikes in which we have endorsed and been sympathetic too. Other strikes have been unnecessary and come about through mischievous intent, like the strikes we have criticised and opposed. Some of the disputes have been productive others have been pointless. If you asked the UK’s 1.7 million unemployed their opinion they probably wouldn’t give a damn. That is unless the benefits office went on strike again like they did in 2002.