'Maggie' Mandy's Last Post

Striking posties are being set up as election pawns by a government hoping tough talk is a vote winner. Delivering the attack is still smarting Mandy, egging on postie-bashing bosses and blocking a deal.

The strike is now set to go-ahead despite last ditch talks. A sign of a fag-end government drifting and dithering around with no political direction.

But Dithering Brown still has time to get off the fence and tell Maggie Mandy to call off the dogs.

The Orange Party is still retching from Mandy's cringe-making pantomime at Brighton, trying to be one of the boys.

Now Maggie Mandy's throwing a strop, squaring up for a battle with posties to smash the strike, still smarting after the Communication Workers Union helped spoil his Mail sell-off plans.

It's pay-back time. The CWU is taking a hammering with all the spin Mandy can muster. But the CWU is fighting back, branding Mandy's bosses-backing line "blantantly untrue and extremely unhelpful".

Mandy's at the wrong end of the pantomime horse if he thinks attacking the posties would boost the dead-end government's appeal to voters.

Is there really any public sympathy for the smug arrogant bosses at Royal Mail? The Orange Party has nothing but the deepest contempt for sharp-suited fat cat Crozier at the helm with the slick patter of a dodgy used-car salesman.

The bitter dispute is tearing the Party apart. Split down the middle between New Labour cronies and true Labour trade unionists. In the commons Tories tried to milk the divide and Bunkered Brown for all it's worth.

Party loyalty is at breaking point. What does Royal Mail do? Hire thousands of 'strike-breakers' for a pittance and order Mail managers to break their contracts and work on the front-line.

Labour MP John McDonnell has already warned: 'This may be part of an election strategy, for Brown and Mandelson to be seen as tough by taking on a union."

Has Bunkered Brown or Maggie Mandy been down to Mount Pleasant? It's not pleasant. What an insult to claim posties are stuck in the past. They're protecting a cherished public service.

Thousands of jobs have gone over the last few years while the firm racks up a whopping £321m operating profit.

Postal workers are caught in the jobs trap. Firefighters and refuse workers too are up in arms as bosses have them over the jobs barrel and force through cheap below the belt working practices.

It's starting to have all the hallmarks of the 'Winter of Discontent' that put an end to Callaghan's Labour government. Yet this political and industrial mess can be sorted.

Make a start by putting £1m plus a year Crozier and his greedy bunch of Mail robbing side-kicks in their place, instead of letting them play tough guys and union-bashing bosses.

Ex-postie union leader, Al Johnson, could mediate, instead of leaving workers up the Swanee.

Maggie Mandy too should get out of Thatcher's '80s and move with the times. Royal Mail is a publicly-owned company. He's responsible for it with a plumb cabinet job.

Dithering Bunkered Brown and Maggie Mandy could still get on the blower to fat cat Crozier and give him notice to strike a deal with the CWU and sort it out. Otherwise sack him.

And when the lads are back at work - sack him anyway. After all Mandy has been quick to point out this is a 'damaging dispute'. The damage is being done by using postal workers as an election pawn to dig up the festering remains of a withering Party.