The date was 9th September 2007. The context was the last RMT strike a few days earlier. The setting was Mayor's Question Time:
Question by Roger Evans: You did point out during the dispute that Bob Crow was making a very good case for legislation to limit the right of the union to go on strike and to limit their powers. Will you now join in with making that case to Government as well because it would be much more effective coming from you than from Bob I suspect?
Answer by Ken Livingstone: I think that the right to strike is our second most important right after the right to vote. What appals me about the RMT is that by misusing the strike weapon, basically as a bullying technique rather than to resolve a genuine and irreconcilable difference, they undermine that. It certainly would not be right, I don't think, to impose on people in Unite and the TSSA the loss of their right to strike because a small handful of people on the RMT executive are behaving rather more like a protection racket than a proper industrial union.
"Protection racket," eh? How does that compare with "demented"?
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