In his famous book, 1984, writer George Orwell created a new language which was used by power. In this aspect, his novel, written in 1948, was a completely accurate forecast of the Royal address to Parliament.
On 27 May 2015, the Queen's speech, not written by the Queen but delivered by her to all the political representatives of the UK, elected and unelected, established the magisterial idea that a set of rank, sloppy and vicious measures, churned out by Tory machine men and women, were imbued by some higher order. These Tory manifesto pledges become the aims and the property of the whole ruling estate. This is the mechanism by which the wishes of less than 25% of Britain's potential electorate changes into a holy writ, guiding a new regime. It is all tosh of course. Cameron's followers will organise the royal speech in a dozen different ways, depending on how to best fight the class struggle. But every twist and turn will be painted up as part of the holy message, decided by the voters of Swindon and turned into the Holy Grail via Her Majesty's remote and pedestrian reading style.
On and on it goes. Her Majesty's ludicrous headline for the royal quackery was that the speech was for 'working people.' The Queen is about the only part of Britain's archaic political system that represents working people even less than the Tories. Meanwhile the Tory 'thinkers' have two ideas about the use of the term 'working people' and its valuable association with the Tory party - a party led by millionaires and establishment grandees; first it is aimed at undermining UKIP's populist appeal, which now threatens Tories in some constituencies much more than the traditional Labour Party. Second, it is designed to set the working part of the working class against the benefit receivers, even though those, in their majority, are also working!
The greatest absurdity of all is that this speech 'for working people' has now defined union strength as hostile to 'working people.' Unions are to be curbed, with rules on trade union action requiring voting thresholds far beyond those needed to ensure the legitimacy of a government; where scabbing is to be assured and encouraged and where individual pickets will face criminal action. None of the many suggestions by the unions for reform of the ancient, isolated voting system have been even recognised as part of the debate. The Royal message is that working people obviously don't need unions. (We wait to see what the new candidates for Labour leadership and the SNP leaders say about their intentions to overturn this latest Royal gift to to working people.) But in the meantime it worth pointing out a basic fact.
The Department for Business Innovation and Skills published information from the Office for National Statistics in May 2014 for the previous two years. This publication showed that public sector employees have a 19.8% higher wage than their non-union counterparts. In the private sector the gap in favour of trade unionists is 7%. It continues;
'Trade union members in both the public and private sectors saw a rise in average gross hourly earnings between 2012 and 2013. Private sector non-members saw a broad stagnation in their average hourly earnings over the same period, while public sector non-members experienced a reduction.'
Besides the obvious; that being in a union increases your wages, there is the opposite point; that not being in a union means that your wages 'stagnate' (are cut through inflation) or actually reduce more than inflation. We have the proof of the experiment. Without unions working people do not receive better living standards. Nobody in charge gives away potential profit. Owners of capital and managers of state functions want workers to cost less and work more. Indeed, if 2012 and 2013 are typical, unions are the only way that 'working people' might improve their lot. And now we come to the Orwellian centre of Her Majesty's peroration. 'For working people' does not mean for the gain or advantage of working people. 'For working people' means working people should have less wages and little or no benefits. If it means 'for' anything connected to working people, it is 'for' a new set of working people; working people who work for love! (Or, more accurately, fear. Which in today's working world often turns into the same thing.) Her Majesty and the Tories want to reinvent working people! That is what they are 'for.' And as declining union membership shows, that has already happened for millions.
So what remains of the unions as organisations that will potentially act to defend members' living standards is to be binned; 'for (the aim of getting the type of) working people (we need).'
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