As David has mentioned the BBC has been particularly fawning about Bob Crow so far….he is presented as a roguish lad with none of the tough realities behind his actions given any credence…..Thatcher was immediately, within minutes of her death, being denounced as divisive and hated, Crow is apparently ‘loved and respected’. Pienaar has been glossing over all the complaints targeted at Crow….his high salary, living in a council house, his holiday as the union was about to strike….Crow was just a loveable rogue.
Ken Livingstone only had nice things to say about him according to the BBC…..
Mr Johnson’s predecessor Ken Livingstone told the BBC the “endless strain of being a media hate figure” may have taken a toll on Mr Crow.
And Crow wasn’t a serious threat to anything he was much misrepresented by those with an agenda….
Mr Crow’s class-based politics made him a regular cartoon villain for some newspapers.
The nearest the BBC comes to the truth is in this ‘Magazine’ article:
Bob Crow, who has died at the age of 52, was an intensively divisive figure. But he was easily the best-known trade unionist in the UK.
To his admirers he was a working-class hero and fighter who stood up for his members and won. To his enemies he was a bully who inflated his workers’ wages by bringing misery upon commuters.
In the eyes of his opponents, Crow’s achievements were gouged by exploiting his position in order to inflict misery on travellers. But to his members it was a testament to his tactical acumen, negotiating skills and mastery of industrial relations.
But such views were not reflected in the news and other coverage as I listened today.
The Telegraph gets the tone about right:
Bob Crow – obituary
Bob Crow was the belligerent RMT leader whose tough tactics were loved by union members but hated by commuters
He had John Prescott, a former official of the union, expelled for failing to renationalise the railways, then resigned from the board of Transport for London after the exasperated mayor, Ken Livingstone, urged workers to cross the RMT’s latest picket line. In 2004 Labour expelled the RMT from the party.
But what about cuddly Ken, did he always think such nice thoughts about Bob? From the Guardian:
Tube strike: how Bob got on with Ken
I think that the right to strike is our second most important right after the right to vote. What appals me about the RMT is that by misusing the strike weapon, basically as a bullying technique rather than to resolve a genuine and irreconcilable difference, they undermine that. It certainly would not be right, I don’t think, to impose on people in Unite and the TSSA the loss of their right to strike because a small handful of people on the RMT executive are behaving rather more like a protection racket than a proper industrial union.
Not as if the BBC didn’t know that…from 2009:
Even the former Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, said in 2007 the RMT executive behaved more like a “protection racket than a proper industrial union”.
So far they have managed to avoid repeating Ken’s previous thoughts today.
An irony is that it may have been privatisation of the railways that gave Crow so much power, the BBC tells us….though he surely would have had more over a nationalised monopoly:
Ralph Darlington, professor of employment relations at Salford University, says the union’s confrontational style can be traced back to rail privatisation.
“I think we could characterise the RMT as one of the most militant and left-wing unions in Britain. The politicisation has come about in the face of the challenges which they feel they have faced.”
What of Crow’s communist ideals?:
“When I see Ronaldo earns half a million quid a month and people say train drivers are greedy working nine hours downstairs in them temperatures – nah, I think it’s the rate for the job. The reality is it’s a jungle out there.”
So its dog eat dog and damn everyone else as long as his union members get their pay rise.
The boy done good but there was a price to pay…..the BBC loved his tough negotiating stance ignoring the threats and just telling us how wonderfully successful his last minute negotiation were…the reality was a bit different, not quite so romantic:
Often his first step was a strike ballot, with negotiations only on the eve of disruption, if then. He once told West End retailers who warned that another Tube strike would put them out of business that they would be “casualties of war”.
Retailers…pah…who needs them…they just feed the greed, materialism and consumerism that is destroying society and the planet. No wonder the BBC likes him.
Nick Robinson at least recognises that Bob has been transformed into a second ‘Saint Bob’…..though he thinks it is more to do with Crow’s admirable belligerence and entrenched opinions rather than what is more likely…the romantic appeal amongst the BBC trots of someone who opposed the Bosses……
Bob Crow: Public enemy number one or national treasure?
No-one, of course, likes to speak ill of the dead but there are other reasons why Bob Crow may appear to have been transformed overnight from public enemy number one to a national treasure.
This was a man who knew what he thought, knew whose side he was on and knew who the enemy were – in an era when that can be said of a shrinking number of people in public life.
The thing about champagne socialist such as crow and his ilk, is they are pound to a penny always paid for by the public purse. (In his case by his union members) The bBC by the TV Tax and MPs by the people. They are never sacked for shoddy work, if anything they moved to another department along with promotion and a payrise (just to get them out of the bloody way) With such an umbrella in place these wankers have no problem promoting their 2 legs bad, 4 legs good agenda, while walking on 2 legs smoking cigars and drinking whisky. (The last is a ref to Animal farm)
i hope with bob crows death today and i did like the bloke that somebody like nigel farage who by the way was drinking buddys picks up the baton from bob and speaks up on behalf of the working class silent majority out there who have no voice in this country anymore.love or loath bob crow he was from working class stock who fought a good deal for his workers,take note nigel farage,if you want seats in the next parliament in the house of commons there are millions of working class voters out there who will vote for you,this is your chance ukip,dont squander it.
I made the mistake of listening to radio London this evening – universal praise for Mr Crow – as they say “ask not for whom the bell tolls”, but I certainly felt that BBC coverage was far more sympathetic than it was for Margaret Thatcher – no surprise really.
This afternoon I heard the BBC reporting that Crow had died. Then they had Nick Jones – described as a former BBC industrial correspondent, saying “the commuters of London respected him”.
Bollox. How can anyone make such a stupid statement ?
The commuters of London hated him. They knew he was an overpaid bully, using the monopoly power of his union to screw the commuters, to gauge excessive wages and overtime for his unskilled members, to regularly threaten the nation’s capital with transport disruption.
Of course it is sad for his family and friends that he has died so early. But he was bloated with monopoly power – and he abused his power for years.
A lot of his union’s members would also say how he stood up for them
But that’s the trouble with Trade Unions in the post war era. All to often the philosophy of “”Sod You Jack. I’m All Right”. So they should not be surprised when those that are the victims fail to share their sympathy, In fact quite the reverse. “Sod you lot when you lose your job”.
No doubt there were those that thought (and fought) that Jack Dash, Mick Mcgahey and Adolf Scargill were good for their union. Look how good they were for the London docks and the coal mines.
Crow was a dinosaur not a national treasure. But he and his kind cost us some national treasure…
The national treasure accolade is an interesting one, all the more to be tripping so easily off the tongues of Beeboids from Newsnight to Nick ‘Andy Capp’ Robinson.
Thing is, Mr. Crow will soon be sharing the geographical location of many other ‘treasures’.
Which makes the BBC’s reverential reference, if doubtless aware that they too share it, a brave one to trot out.
When eventually their hypocritical hubris catches up with them, maybe less uniquely configured broadcasters can resurrect a last ironic outing for ‘Strictly’ over its final resting place?
With luck the true Crow legacy will be driverless underground trains , probably sooner than you think.
Mr Crow was a marxist and thus the enemy of all normal people.
The BBC nearly gave Bob Crowe the Nelson Mandela treatment They obliterated what the man was really like. Margaret Thatcher was not as well remembered.
“The contradictory life of Comrade Bob:
Loved by his members, loathed by the public. A bruiser with charm who lived in a council house while enjoying the high-life”
By Leo McKinstry.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2578723/The-contradictory-life-Comrade-Bob-Loved-members-loathed-public-A-bruiser-charm-lived-council-house-enjoying-high-life.html#ixzz2vkVEJhgx
I agree Alan that coverage was fair and impartial.
As with Thatcher, the first day or two was about bringing the initial news of the death, and Bob Crow’s was obviously a surprise.
Laterly, it’s given a rounded picture of his divisiveness, as requested. Coverage has also reflected that those who might be considered enemies have given tributes.
‘As with Thatcher, the first day or two was about bringing the initial news of the death..’
Funny, I thought it was about getting her enemies behind the mic to slag her off with all the graceless bile typical of the Hard Left.
After 20-odd years of ‘comedy’ character assassination by the BBC’s representative comedians
“A tragic death, yes. But in the name of sanity why are so many sanctifying Bob Crow?”
By MAX HASTINGS.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2579743/MAX-HASTINGS-A-tragic-death-yes-But-sanity-sanctifying-Bob-Crow.html#ixzz2vqP44xXp