The rich and those who serve them

general, universal and eternal when in reality it was scattered, here and there, and no great problem”.

In fact, the crisis was nothing like as serious as the one Edward Heath had in 1974 with threeday weeks caused by restricted power supplies during the miners’ strike of that year.

In February 1979, the Economist pointed out in spite of tabloid newspapers headlines like the Sun’s predicting a “Famine Threat” only 200,000 people were laid off and supermarkets remained well stocked.

In spite of dire predictions, the only person who died was a picket under the wheels of a lorry.

A media myth about union power was created and utilised very effectively by Margaret Thatcher to win the May 1979 election campaign.

In government, legislation to curb trade unions was passed in October 1982.

Further laws, often misleadingly termed “Employment Acts”, followed in 1984, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1990 and 1992.

One fact bears repeating. The gap between rich and poor was at its narrowest in the 1970s, a decade when trade unionism was its strongest.

In 2021 there is an obscene gap between those flaunting great wealth and working people battered by austerity, low pay, zerohours contacts and now Covid-19.

So much for excessive trade union power. CT

Granville Williams is editor of Media North, magazine of the Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom.

We don’t know exactly why Uma Subramanian wanted to become an engineer. Did she believe her fascination with how things work could help make the world better place? We’ll never know for sure. What we do know: Subramanian, the aerospace engineer turned CEO of the luxury private-jet company Aero, now believes she has truly made humanity an awesome contribution.

“It just so happens that we might have built the perfect product for Covid,” Subramanian recently told Vice World News.

Her new company, founded by Uber founder Garrett Camp, has launched a luxury “semi-private jet” experience that offers safe and comfy virus-free flights. Seats in Aero’s suede-walled jets sit six feet apart in single file. “Hand-stitched Italian leather seats” aboard Aero’s “sleek black planes” combine with “sophisticated art lighting” to create a “renaissance of luxury travel”.

That “renaissance” is building from another direction as well. Brokers of used private jets have been enjoying a boom in sales ever since the pandemic began.

“Looking back we had a very good year and much, much better than expected”, Werner Slavik, chief banker for aviation at Societe Generale SA told a virtual Corporate Jet Investor conference earlier this month. “We saw, especially in the smaller jet market, quite strong demand”.

Bankers like Slavik cut deals for 2,598 used planes in the pandemic year of 2020.

“We have a lot of first-time buyers”, says Rebecca Johnson from the Kansas City-based aircraft sales broker JetHQ. “Covid has just seemed to drive most people over the edge”.

“You can’t go on vacation on Zoom”, explains Robert Gates, chief of international sales for Global Jet Capital Inc. “You need to get to your vacation house some way”.

Heaven forbid that those houses go vacant. In our staggeringly unequal world, people like Gates, Johnson, and Subramanian will always be there to make sure the rich – whatever the crisis of the moment may be – have what they