Andrew Marr: 'Will strikes misery get so acute the government has to surrender to pay rise demands?'
6 December 2022, 18:43 | Updated: 6 December 2022, 18:55
Andrew Marr has said, with the hospitality sector set to lose £1.5billion and hundreds of millions expected to be lost in output due to industrial action, how much human and economic misery can be sustained before the government is forced to give into union pay demands.
Speaking on LBC's Tonight with Andrew Marr, the presenter said the strikes seen across the country will have a 'devastating' effect on restaurants, high street shops and venues trying to bounce back from covid and some may not be able to recover.
Yesterday rail union RMT confirmed that extra strikes would take place over the festive period, with action planned on Christmas eve, and civil servants, nurses, postal workers and bus drivers are also staging walk outs.
He said: "So, a tingle of expectation, folks – after the covid years, this is going to be quite a Christmas. Mind you, don't try to visit mum and dad, the kids or your best mates. The trains aren’t running. RMT strike. Ah, doesn't matter to me, you may think. I’ll use the bus. You’ll be lucky: bus strike in London, national Stagecoach strike too.
"Rats, you say: I will not be beaten. I'm gonna drive. Well, be careful. There’s a national highways’ strike throughout the festive season. In which case, sod it all, you say; I’ll give up, I’ll just leave this strike-bound country and I’ll party somewhere else. No you won't, sunshine. Forgotten, had we, about the Heathrow strike, the Eurostar strike, and if those don't get you, the strikes by the Border Force people.
Andrew Marr: 'Should the government give in and pay full inflation increases to key workers?'
Watch Tonight with Andrew Marr exclusively on Global Player every Monday to Thursday from 6pm to 7pm
"But please, above everything else - don’t let any of this stress you - watch the blood pressure - because there are... yes, ambulance strikes and if you somehow make it to a hospital, perhaps decanted into a shopping trolley, enjoy the architecture ...because almost everybody there won’t be there. They’ll be on strike as well - nurses, obviously but also paramedics, emergency care assistants, technicians and in some places, porters and cleaners.
"This Christmas, it seems, there's almost nothing left to do except slump on the sofa. Don't light a ciggie though - firefighters strike. Crack open a beer? Not a Greene King one - brewery workers strike. Read the Xmas cards? Hah. Postal strike. Now at this point you might think you just want to curl up and die.
"My advice is not to, right now: there is - and I'm not making this up - a strike at the only coffin making factory in Britain. It's touch and go as to whether the Coronavirus lockdown or this winter of Discontent will have had the more destructive effect on our Christmases, not to mention our health, mental and otherwise.
"Many of these strikes by 1.5 million workers are in the public sector but of course their effect on the private sector will be devastating - on pubs, restaurants, High Street shops and entertainment venues still struggling to recover from covid. Some businesses will go under - never to return.
You can also listen to the podcast Tonight with Andrew Marr only on Global Player.
"The hospitality sector reckons it will lose around 1.5 billion. The Centre for Economics and Business Research estimates that strikes which stop people getting to work will, by themselves, cost Britain £700 million pounds of lost output.
"So folks I want to ask a question today – a genuine question, I don't know the answer to it - does there come a time when the economic cost and human misery of these strikes are so great that the government should, frankly, just give in? Fold, and pay full inflation increases to all the key workers?"
