He was very good at his job no doubt.

Tony Benn. Lefties are dropping like flies this year.

The recent tube strikes had nothing to do with tube drivers trying to inflate their salaries, despite what the Daily Mail might have you believe. They were an attempt to prevent the job losses that would have resulted from Boris deciding to close all of the ticket offices that he had previously pledged to protect.

Imo the sort of discourse that frames tube drivers as lazy and greedy and presents teachers and nurses and the like as hard-working and put-upon, and thus more deserving of their pay, has everything to do with class - which is precisely why so many people would prefer to ignore it.

The level of inconvenience caused by the tube strikes was nowhere near as bad as the media made out. Lots of lines were still running a good service and buses, DLR and the Overground all continued to operate as normal. Most of those moaning about Bob Crowe 'holding the capital to ransom' were just too lazy to walk or cycle to work or get up an hour earlier to take an alternate form of transport. Same sort of people who take the day off work when it's snowing.

Imo that's a fairly minor amount of disruption compared to schools closing when teachers go on strike – since there are no viable alternatives at all in that scenario. Even during the tube strikes most people got around ok or were able to work from home, so it didn't cause the same sort of knock-on effect that schools closing would when parents might be forced to take time off because they can't arrange or afford childcare.

If teachers think they're so hard done by salary wise then they should see what it's like in academia. Until my latest contract finished I was working as a postdoctoral research assistant at a London university. Short term contract, zero job security, poorly paid, ridiculously competitive. That involved undertaking teaching responsibilities too. I was on similar money to a bus driver – but I wouldn't begrudge them a pay rise if they were to go on strike. It's a shame that everything in this country seems to be a race to the bottom now. Seriously considering emigrating in a few years time.

Anyway, R.I.P. Tony Benn - a great, principled man, proper socialist and a true gentleman. Very sad to see him go.

If teaching were paid higher it would attract a better calibre of teachers, increasing the educational attainment of the country. Higher paid train drivers will not benefit anyone else aside from train drivers. This has fuck all to do with class.

The recent tube strikes had nothing to do with tube drivers trying to inflate their salaries, despite what the Daily Mail might have you believe. They were an attempt to prevent the job losses that would have resulted from Boris deciding to close all of the ticket offices that he had previously pledged to protect.

This

So you want to make the tube much worse, just because it would be cheaper? The NY metro is anarchy which isn't actually fun when you have to commute etc

Salaries are not some zero sum game, front line service workers should get paid more, tube drivers don't need to be paid less.

I beg to differ on the 'much worse' part, it can be a tad unpunctual but I'll take that when I can get from JFK to Grand Central (via a bus to Queens) for a couple of bucks; or stumble out of a bar in Brooklyn at 3am and be in uptown half an hour later, without parting with 30 quid for a dodgy Asian cab ride.

Have you ever worked in the NHS? I think you'd be surprised.

All new nurses now have had to hold a degree-level qualification to enter the profession so it's only going to become increasingly more middle class in the future.


Yeah because paying high salaries obviously helps to attract a much better calibre of person. Just look at all those fine upstanding, city bankers who've done so much for the finances of the country…


same for me actually, much quieter than usual, even got a seat on a Northern line

Having a degree does not mean you are middle class, surely someone in academia would understand that.

Calibre maybe isn't the best word, but generally a lot of people who would make excellent teachers are put off because of the low salary and poor work-life balance. Instead you end up with people going into teaching after scraping a 2.2 and deciding on doing a PGCE cos they can't find a job anywhere else. A mate of mine is currently training to be a maths/science teacher, he got a third in his engineering degree. If teaching was a better paid career he wouldn't have a chance of getting into an initial teacher education course, there would be more intelligent and capable people applying for it instead.