Britain’s Summer of Discontent Is Thrashing Conservatives
Perhaps the unease in the country arises from the perception that Boris Johnson is a man without a plan.
Liberal Democrats party leader Ed Davey and newly elected MP Richard Foord in Tiverton.
Photographer: JUSTIN TALLIS/AFPAt the nadir of the 1970s, when garbage piled up in streets and striking workers left the dead unburied, the UK was said to be in the grip of a “winter of discontent.” For most of the decade, the country lived with a sense of impending breakdown, brought about by unprecedented levels of inflation, union militancy and feeble government. CBS News told Americans that Britain was becoming as chaotic as Chile before the military coup.
These memories linger in Britain’s body politic. This week, as the railways ground to a halt in a national strike, the papers warned of “a summer of discontent.” A tsunami of strikes is being threatened by public-sector workers — teachers, doctors and nurses and even criminal law barristers, angry at underfunding of the court system. Private-sector unions in the airline industry and the post office are also weighing their options.