Strikes, delays and national shame in the run up to the London 2012 Olympics

It is (almost) the eve of the Olympic Games in London.

The London 2012 Olympics, the biggest thing to hit this city, and country, in decades.

The culmination of seven years of planning, preparing, designing, building and promoting.

I suppose I should be filled with optimism, high hopes, expectancy, joy that the whole country pulling together to make this a wonderful event.

Think again, this is Britain.

I left work this evening to the news the Government was planning High Court  to prevent Border Staff striking on Thursday.

Yes that’s right. In case you thought you had read that incorrectly, members of the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union are planning a walkout - one day before the busiest periods in UK history.

Military police, Whitehall officials and retired border staff have been drafted in on standby to prevent the chaos that will ensue if the strike goes ahead.

Chaos these workshy idiots are happy to inflict on the entire nation if they don;t get their greedy hands on more money.

Did I say the country pulling together – I should have known better.

These are the days of entitlement, everything for nothing, medical staff threatening to down tools over not-fat-enough pensions, and the guardians of our borders walking out on the busiest day to ever hit Heathrow airport.

Shame on the lot of you. But it’s not just them.

Union leader Bob Crow wasted no time in jumping  on the “lets make the UK a laughing stock” bandwagon, announcing he plans industrial action on the London Underground.

A move again designed to throw the Olympics, and the lives of everyone who relies on the trains, into chaos.

Crow, the boss of the Rail Maritime and Transport union, is moaning once again about, you guessed it, money.

Already set to receive hefty bonuses, tube workers have vowed to work-to-rule from Friday in a fresh dispute over cash.

These are the the people who deliver to the great British public a transport system which is crap at the best of times.

Yesterday, three days before the opening ceremony, the system ground to a chaotic halt as signal failures and faulty trains led to suspension of the Central Line during rush hour, delays on the DLR which also flopped during morning rush hour with no-one seeming to know what was going on, and suspensions on the overground - but apparently that was due to the wrong type of heat causing the rails to buckle.

If transport staff offer a complete dogs dinner virtually daily all year round, then stand by, because they are gearing up to really outdo themselves in the coming weeks.

And in yet another, separate dispute, the union announced a strike by cleaners on the Tube and Docklands Light Railway (DLR) from Friday morning until Sunday, the first weekend of the Games.

Cleaners??? You are having a laugh?

Judging by the state of the platforms, carriages, and where there are any, toilets, I am surprised to hear there are actually any cleaners.

Rather than striking, maybe you should be asking for refresher courses at scrubbing college, because none of you are exactly Kim and Aggie when it comes to using a mop and bucket.

Surely this is a joke?!

So as I walked home this evening, dodging cars over Olympic Lanes because the heaving pedestrian crossing had been taken out of action, past signs warning the tube stations will be “exceptionally busy” over the next two months, I was filled with a sense of pride.

Pride, joy and security that everyone is linking arms to make this thing go smoothly –  now that is a joke.