Such practices have repercussions, and wealth distribution in\u00a0the UK is now the joint sixth most unequal<\/a>\u00a0globally (France is fourteenth). Compounded by a steep decline in\u00a0social mobility<\/a>, these unsustainable trends represent the end game of Thatcherite policies that required the assistance of a militarised police force to dismantle Trade Unions termed\u00a0\u2018the enemy within\u2019<\/a>, before making targeted attacks upon other elements of \u2018working-class\u2019 culture.<\/p>\n The Wapping dispute and the Miners\u2019 Strike, which led to the\u00a0Battle of Orgreave<\/a>, are two examples of the state\u2019s attack on collective bargaining and working class communities nationwide.\u00a0The Battle of Beanfield<\/a>, which led to the largest mass arrest of civilians since the Second World War, attacked New Age Travellers and green politics, while acid house parties were also targeted. And, of course, there was the sustained attack upon football, regarded by \u2018decent folk\u2019 at the time as\u00a0\u201ca slum sport played in slum stadiums, and increasingly watched by slum people who deter decent folk from turning up\u201d<\/a>. This attack upon the \u2018people\u2019s game\u2019 involved the\u00a0caging of supporters<\/a>, the introduction of now omnipresent\u00a0CCTV<\/a> systems, a proposed national\u00a0ID Card Scheme<\/a>\u00a0and even electrified fences at Chelsea\u2019s\u00a0Stamford Bridge<\/a>\u00a0ground. But this campaign reached its nadir with the\u00a0Hillsborough disaster<\/a>\u00a0and the subsequent cover-up by South Yorkshire Police.<\/p>\n Although calls are being made for another inquiry into Orgreave, Hillsborough represents a solitary victory for those who were targeted by the state at that time. But it came too late. Football, as coherently argued in Hillsborough survivor Adrian Tempany\u2019s book\u00a0And the Sun Shines Now<\/em><\/a>, was transformed, on the basis of\u00a0the Sun\u2019s<\/em><\/a>\u00a0accusations of hooliganism, to appeal to the middle classes. So successful was this transformation that many of the working-class fans, whose predecessors\u2019 had sustained football for more than 100 years, can no longer afford to attend matches or \u2013 deep irony alert \u2013 pay Rupert Murdoch\u2019s satellite TV subscriptions.<\/p>\n In industry those initial, but highly significant, victories opened the door to ever more changes and amendments designed to undermine\u00a0Trade Union powers<\/a>\u00a0and hard-won\u00a0employment protections<\/a>\u00a0increasingly shored up by the European Union (EU Law had its own footballing cause c\u00e9l\u00e8bre in\u00a0Jean-Marc Bosman<\/a>\u00a0of course) but, as the current referendum on the UK\u2019s membership of the European Union demonstrates, divide and rule politics, aided by a predominantly right-wing media, is thriving. The creation of the all too obvious, but effective, schism between \u2018private\u2019 and \u2018public\u2019 sector workers over pensions and the like, is simply the next step in alienating the working classes from each other.<\/p>\n Following the loss of what were higher wages in the private sector, good public sector pensions are an easy target, but the omnipresent demands of employers for ever more \u2018flexible\u2019 workforces, and the use of zero hours contracts effect all realms of work in the UK today. In football parlance; \u2018we was robbed\u2019. The UK is, therefore, an apposite example of what may be ahead for French workers should they surrender too much ground. From the outside it appears that workers in all sectors are united in this struggle and I will stand in solidarity with the French on this and terrorism \u2013 even if it means missing a much anticipated football match or two.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Following the terrorist atrocities in Paris on the 13th November 2015 I quickly resolved to attend the European Championships as planned (many thanks Matt and Pierre). I realise there is an element of risk in doing so but, rather than superimposing a tricolour over my Facebook picture, I thought this was a tangible method of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":2425,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[78,79],"class_list":["post-2424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-okategoriserade","tag-euro2016","tag-france"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t![\"uefa-euro-2016\"](\"http:\/\/idrottsforum.org\/forumbloggen\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/uefa-euro-2016-300x180.jpg\")
I, for one, will accept such a fate should it happen. For while the reforms may not mean \u201ca surrender to wicked, Anglo-saxon, ultra-liberal capitalism<\/a>\u201d, they do represent the thin end of a wedge very familiar to British families over the last thirty-five years. A wedge that has led to the \u2018illegal\u2019 employment practices of\u00a0Mike Ashley<\/a>. And the tax-dodging \/ \u2018carpet-bagging\u2019 antics of\u00a0Philip Green<\/a>\u00a0being rewarded by a government post and a knighthood.<\/p>\n