I’m no union man

When I was made redundant, quite a few years ago, I naturally dropped my membership of the union that did sweet FA to stop me being made redundant.

Actually it wasn’t a bad deal. The pay was frozen for three years and redundancy was three years’ pay and a ‘get lost’ note. So my options were either work for them for three years with no pay rises or take three years’ pay right then and go and do something else. Not a difficult choice.

The union phoned afterwards to ask why I had dropped my membership. Slightly confused, I replied that as I was now self-employed and didn’t work there any more, there really wasn’t anything they could do for me. They seemed to think there was.

Since they did bugger all when I was employed, I really couldn’t see how they could help me as self-employed so I fairly politely declined their offer of taking money from me. They never phoned again.

I’m still self-employed as well as employed so my tax code is split 50/50 between the two. I get a small retainer every three months from a company that occasionally phones for advice. Also the books… they make a bit of whisky money, no more, but they count as self-employed. I still fill out a tax form every year and for the past few years I’ve had a decent rebate. It’s time to do it again.

It seems Moribund has been castigated for not sending his election lies to the self-employed. As if any of us are likely to vote for a union puppet anyway. He’s just being sensible really. It would be a waste of a hell of a lot of paper.

But one leading self-employed businessman said: ‘Labour depends on union subscriptions for funding and in reality, few of the self-employed are union members. This is not so much a slap in the face to the self-employed as a left hook.’

Really? Not having to put a bit of paper with crap written all over it into the bin is some kind of mortal insult? I put it all in there. From every party. Unread. Since no election promise is binding, it is an utter waste of time to read any of them. I’ll make up my own mind, thanks. Without bothering to read any lies or slanderous remarks about other candidates.

Now if they had to deliver on promises within a set timeframe or it would trigger another election, those bits of paper would be worth reading. As it is, they are too smooth and slippery to wipe your arse with and are therefore of no value whatsoever. Like the politicians pictured in most of them.

Those leaflets are all a waste of money. Espeically those targeted where there is no hope of a vote. Moribund, if he had a brain, would be saying that.

He isn’t. None of them are.

I’d vote for the first one who did.