Steve Hedley was recently suspended from his position as the senior assistant general secretary of the UK’s Rail, Maritime, and Transport Workers (RMT) Union after making a joke on his Facebook page about UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s recent contraction of COVID-19. He was predictably attacked by Britain’s right-wing media, Radio Sputnik host Brian Becker noted on Tuesday’s episode of Loud & Clear.
In a recent post on his personal Facebook page, Hedley wrote of Johnson, who had contracted the coronavirus: “If he pops his clogs [dies] I am throwing a party.” Hedley’s comment was widely disparaged by outlets like The Sun, The Times, The Sunday Times and the Press Association, all of which are owned by Australian-American media mogul Keith Rupert Murdoch.
In a letter to the British paper The Morning Star, Hedley’s supporters rose to his defense, writing, “Whether or not you agree with the appropriateness of Steve’s comments, his post was firstly, in a personal capacity, and secondly, it was in a well established RMT tradition of not bowing down to the press barons, or the leaders of the Tory party.”
The letter then goes on to state that “the Murdoch press,” which has “been cheerleading Boris for years, and [has] not been angered by the fact that we have NHS [National Health Service] staff dying for lack of protective clothing, suddenly rediscovered their sense of phoney-outrage, and described Steve’s comments as ‘vile.’”
The letter also explains how the Murdoch-owned press has never supported the union movement in the UK.
“Well, I can’t really comment too much, because I am actually under investigation at the minute from my trade union. And the views that I expressed were my personal views and not of the trade union … I think people need to understand this is the context that it was said and of course, in retrospect, I don’t think I would have put those views on social media, and I think it was possibly a very silly thing to do,” Hedley explained to Becker.
Becker noted that in his opinion, the Murdoch media has long tried to undermine the labor movement.
“The media is trying to undermine the labor movement. They’re trying to undermine labor militancy. They’re targeting - this is my personal opinion, Steve, not because of your comment. What they say, what the bosses say, what the Tories say, what the right-wing Murdoch media says about people, makes what you said look like something very, very timid and tame. What they’re really doing - they’re trying to crush the labor movement,” Becker pointed out.
Hedley also noted the coronavirus situation in the UK has “absolutely been a disaster” due to the “absolute lack of preparation by Boris Johnson and his regime.”
The UK government initially proposed a herd immunity tactic to fight COVID-19, which would have exposed many people to the coronavirus, making it harder for the disease to spread once much of the population had become immune. However, on March 14, just four days after Johnson revealed his herd immunity strategy, he changed his mind and urged all citizens to "stop non-essential contact with others and to stop all unnecessary travel.”
The latest data by Worldometer reveals that there are more than 93,000 cases of the virus in the UK, and more than 12,000 people have died there due to the disease, making the UK one of the European countries hit hardest by the coronavirus, following Italy, Germany and Spain.
“The absolute lack of preparation by Boris Johnson and his regime has meant that we’ve got at least 10,000 people dead,” Hedley noted, pointing out that “even frontline workers on the NHS have not been given PPE [Personal Protective Equipment] in a lot of cases.”
“This has happened to transport workers as well,” he added. “Certainly in the past 10 years, the staff in the NHS have not had a decent pay raise.”