Ulm Is disappearing under a mountain of trash.

I don't quite remember how long our version of the 1979 Winter of Discontent has been going on, but if it continues much longer, the roads authority will have to designate some of the mountains of garbage bags as roundabouts. Although I am happy to attribute the current situation to the regular leaderless nature of German national and local politics, I suspect the looming local authority elections have something to do with it as well.


Once the electionis over.

I often wonder if the left here has any grasp of economics, and I might remind you that I am coming from the left in Scotland (which is considerably more left than anything described as left here!), who know that no strike has ever been of benefit to those who struck.

Most strikes end with the strikers in a considerable personal and financial crisis. During the Miners strike 1984/85 I was the Stirling Labour Party constituency secretary and had first hand experience of how much damage the strike caused the workers and how much it served the government. Families crumbled under the strain, relationships broke up and the rate of divorce amongst the strikers was well above average. The failure of the strike led to the ultimate destruction of the once mighty National Union of Mineworkers (my father was a proud member) and with the absence of the NUM, there was no one to defend the mining communities the way they should been defended and they vanished and coal mining in the UK has almost come to an end.

Under heaps of rubbish

The Coal Board saved an absolute fortune when all those very expensive coal miners went on strike and considering that the City of Ulm is still charging the citizens for the garbage disposal - I don't suppose they are experiencing to much discomfort in City Hall.


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