Jim Ratcliffe 1: Unite (and Scotland) didn't

That much we all know. The Unite members, ie the workers at Grangemouth, suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of one of Britain's richest men, and have to endure the reduction in pensions that formed part of their original dispute. Or did it? The fact is it's very hard to find out from the media exactly what the dispute was about. "Alleged mistreatment of a union official" is as far as I've been able to divine and certainly the "establishment media", by which I mean the BBC, ITN and Sky are not the slightest bit interested in reporting stuff like that. We even had the sinister re-appearance from the shadows of the BBC's Nick Jones, wheeled out today to tell us with his usual relish how the unions got well screwed, and jolly good too, just like he did, day after day, during the miner's strike of the 1980s. And they say the BBC has a leftward bias? Give me a break. All they are interested in talking about is the union's climbdown. But who's to say the workers at Grangemouth aren't actually the heroes of the hour? Aren't they by sacrificing the prospect of a decent pension actually securing the futures of thousands who depend on the petrochemical plant for their livelihoods? You may say they had no choice. I'd say they've got guts.

So who is this this Jim Ratcliffe? Seems he's worth £2.3 billion, although he was hit hard by the world financial crash; probably got down to his last £500 million, but then he relocated his HQ to Switzerland for tax purposes and now he's doing awfully well. So well in fact, that he can hold the whole of Scotland to ransom and get away with it scot free because, well, he owns the fucking joint, so what can you do? Even Alex Salmond seems reluctant to call him for what he is: the ultimate capitalist who can trample over people's lives and act according to principles that would look attractive to an 18th century Whig. I say: take the whole thing into public ownership  offer some compensation to Jim Ratcliffe and tell him to go fuck himself. I know it isn't going to happen, but once again, I must point out that this is what happens when you sign up to a capitalist system of economics where only profit counts, and people don't, even though it's them that makes the profit happen in the first place.