Back to surprises

Having been basking in the Maldives sun for the last 16 days I was starved for news and fortunately missed the UK election circus. Now I am back I have been getting all sorts of surprises. For example we seem to have two sworn political enemies walking around like love struck teenagers vowing to run the country in a ‘grown up’ way. Good to see but scary as well in that you can win a fraction of seats yet become a deputy prime minister these days. Who needs proportional representation when you can do this without it! I wonder how long it will be before the first lovers’ tantrum.
Surprise number two was to hear talk about the abandoning of Heathrow’s expansion plans. This kind of madness could only happen in the UK. You go out and review, consult, consider then come to a conclusion. You make an announcement and then…..it gets banned a few weeks later. Why did they bother in the first place?
Finally I have observed with increasing incredulity that the BA cabin crew will be striking again. Are they crazy? Can they not see that BA management (who incidentally just sacked the crew’s troublesome union rep) are simply not going to back down? Mind you I said the same thing about Heathrow expansion. BA are going to try and stop it through the courts presumably on the basis that the votes were cast on the internet with only 2000 responses which is hardly a mandate I would have thought. My sources tell me that by the end of the last strike over 70% of crew were turning up anyway. To me this is a much clearer mandate for calling the strike off.
Finally, I see Virgin may soon be getting a much overdue bashing in the courts. I am not keen on whistle blowers and I deplored the way they stitched BA up in order to protect themselves for doing the same thing. Now Cathay is doing the same thing to them which I find ironic. Can it be that the UK’s favourite entrepreneur Richard Branson is a serial price fixer? I could not possibly say but I am sure time and courts will tell. Surely not!