1 August 2005: What I'm Reading: the enemy within

'A strike, in the Conservative imagination, is second  cousin to chaos. It is a manifestation of insubordination, the symptom of a restless spirit. It is a threat to law and order. It endangers private property. It disturbs the public peace. A strike is also, by definition, against the "national interest". It cuts at the roots of commercial prosperity; it strangles economic initiatives; it undermines the security of the state. A strike, in the Conservative imagination, is an unnatural act, at best the result of delusion, at worst the work of subversives. Whatever its ostensible justification, it is the result of some sort of conspiracy.'