It was interesting recently to see the rail union leader, Mick Lynch being cheered to the rafters when he made a speech to the British Medical Association; junior doctors and medical professionals don’t often find themselves lining up with rail workers. Yet Lynch used irony to thank the Conservative Government for achieving such unity.

Include barristers, teachers, nurses, porters and other sections of society and the common link is that they are all people who are simply looking for better pay to face a cost-of-living crisis.

There are other links. The Government points the finger of blame at them for increasing inflation, and establishment figures and media accuse workers of having some deep political motivation.

It’s not a new tactic.

I was watching old footage recently of the Miners Strike in the 1980s and was shocked all over again at the brutal and violent scenes at Orgreave near Rotherham when thousands of miners were physically battered by thousands of police, brought in from all over the country, who used horses, dogs and riot gear in attacking the picketing miners.

Working Class men lined up against each other as the miners returned the violence.

Coal mining is such a dangerous and dirty occupation, and yet mining communities were fighting hard to keep the pits open because the industry was their livelihood, and the glue which held many communities together.

But in addition to fossil fuel like coal being run down, the miners were led by Arthur Scargill, whose aims were clearly ideologically political.

The strikes were eventually ruthlessly crushed by the Prime Minister of the day, Margaret Thatcher, who branded the ordinary, hardworking, decent miners, her decent fellow-countrymen, “the enemy within”, and accused the Neil Kinnock-led Labour party of being hijacked by the enemies of democracy.

Sound familiar?

Today, the many decent working people simply trying their best to get a decent wage for their family are denigrated as some sort of political subversives.

Does anyone seriously think that nurses on the picket line fighting for their family and, indeed, highlighting the danger to our NHS are standing there in the cause of some ideological crusade to overthrow a system?

The propaganda battle includes the assertion that workers seeking pay rises are the cause of inflation.

In reality, inflation is already here due to a number of factors and all workers are trying to do is ensure they don’t take further real terms cuts in their pay.

If Thatcher thought the miners and Labour were the enemy within, today we get a diet of similar bullying against working people aided and abetted by many in the media.

The odious Kelvin Mackenzie, remembered for his ignominious treatment of Liverpool fans as editor of The Sun, is now introduced on television as a “Fleet Street legend”.

“Angel nurses will never regain their halos,” he blasted in a hostile rant against the health service strike; and people who supported the train unions were either on Universal Credit or “far lefties”.

That’s actually mild compared to some of the horrible language he uses to attack workers.

The attack generally on working people is really disgraceful and a blot on any country which promotes it against their own people.

A new book about the 1984-85 Miners Strike is called “Backbone of a Nation”. Which is exactly what the many people on strike now are, and instead of being vilified should be valued as its strong moral spine.

Are teachers, nurses, doctors, ambulance personnel, train drivers not of much more intrinsic value to our society than Mackenzie, or any of the front bench of this Government?

And, of course, the classic diversionary fear is that illegal immigrants are dangerous, and we must stop the boats.

Public sector pay in Britain has been suppressed for years; one survey predicts that by 2026 it will be effectively less than £11,000 than it was in 2008. We live in times when people in jobs have to rely on food banks and such is the pressure on working people that figures this week show a major rise in long-term sickness.

Of course, here in Northern Ireland there is the added factor that we don’t have a functioning Executive, and the very British Government which is inflicting hardship on its own working people is quite prepared to use financial pressure on us.

There are some people immune to the hardship of the credit crunch. Big business, for example.

In the last few months, I’ve received letters from both my broadband provider and mobile phone provider. Both have it in their contract that they can put up their prices by the rate of inflation PLUS 3.9 per cent.

In the case of the mobile phone, they used the RPI rate of inflation of 13.4 per cent, so my mobile bill went up by 17.3 per cent; the broadband was worse.

Hefty increases

The interest rate rise saw millions of people face hefty increases on their mortgage, but many financial institutions didn’t pass on major increases they paid to savers. Food prices are increasing at such a pace that people are accusing some major supermarkets of profiteering.

And so it goes on.

The millions paid to companies like that of Michelle Mone for PPE is another example of how this Government looks after their own rich cronies.

When Mick Lynch said that change is coming, and Britain needed to get rid of this rotten Government, there is a political angle to that. But he wasn’t being political in the wider ideological sense, simply hitting the nail on the head that this Government has hit a new low in terms of its abuse of ordinary working people who deserve better.

The American writer Gore Vidal once said: “The genius of the ruling class is that it has kept a majority of the people from ever questioning the inequity of a system where most people drudge along, paying taxes for which they get nothing in return.”

In 2024 there will be an election in Britain. One would think that this corrupt Government which cares little for the ordinary citizen, never mind the vulnerable and weak, would be turfed out of office.

But, aside from the worry that Keir Starmer doesn’t inspire confidence, will the British people be fooled by the fear and division agenda being promoted by the present crop of Tories?

Like the Government of the 1980s who, literally, battered working people over the head, it would be a worry if in the 2020s, another Government abused vulnerable working people and got away with it.