Like many London residents, I have on occasion been known to curse Bob Crow, general secretary of the transport union RMT who has died at the cruelly early age of 52. I hate disruption to normal life, whether caused by strikes, spending cuts or bad weather.
But experience over far too many years tells me that once the causes - as opposed to the effects - of an industrial dispute are fairly examined, it is rare to find no justified grievance. We can argue until the cows come home on whether the response is always proportionate.
Bob Crow, one trade union colleague said, would be laughing his head off today at the fulsome tributes being paid by people who, in his lifetime, depicted him as a bully or luddite or wrecker. The piece I reproduce below, by my old friend Kevin Maguire, associate editor of the Daily Mirror, puts the case for Bob Crow better than most would be able.
When I began working for The Daily Telegraph, at the start of 29 overwhelmingly enjoyable years on the paper, I was struck by the professionalism with which specialists and reporters approached labour/industrial relations stories.
Peter Eastwood, the managing editor, would insist on any report of industrial disputes mentioning the take-home pay of those involved (employees, not bosses) but efforts were invariably made to obtain the views of the trade unions concerned. More than once, this fact was acknowledged, grudgingly or not, to me and other Telegraph journalists by the union officials and left-wing politicians we encountered.
I doubt if Bob Crow felt there was much trace of that even-handed treatment in more recent media coverage of the disputes he led, though I was impressed by the Evening Standard's decision to give him space to put RMT's side of the story in this year's strike by London Underground station staff.
This is how Kevin Maguire, at the Mirror website, responded to news of his passing:
People loved how Bob Crow would call a spade a bloody shovel. In an era of political bland, he was a trade union leader who would tell it how it is and fight to the bitter end for railway workers.
He never hid when the chips were down and only Bob could answer jibes about a beach holiday in Brazil and cruise by asking his critics if they expected him to sit under a tree all day reading Karl Marx.
I loved spending time with him. Over a drink or dinner you'd have a bloody good discussion and laugh like a drain.
He was intelligent, irreverent, had a heart of gold and a surprisingly soft handshake for a burly bloke who went to the gym most days.
Bob turned round the RMT and won decent pay increases for most of his members.
He told me he intended to run for another five-year term.
Right-whingers who portrayed him as a union dinosaur exposed their own prejudice. He'd roar at them with laughter.
I can't believe he's gone at 52 . RIP a working class hero.
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