Self-destructing unions are sweeping away the last vestiges of closed-shop Britain

There are already private ambulance services, and right now they are all expanding. One company, Met Medical, has been specifically offering its services during the strikes. A Guardian headline writer described that as “cashing in” on the strikes in outraged tones. The more moderate among us may view it simply as companies offering a badly needed service to people at a time when the state alternative is not available. 

Who knows, perhaps a private ambulance service would actually be better? There are already reports that the airports ran more smoothly with the border guards on strike and with a few soldiers manning the passport booths. The strikes may well be the perfect moment to replace the existing guards with Artificial Intelligence machines. We could have permanently more efficient airports, and at far lower cost as well. 

No one is ever irreplaceable. Nor are any services or products. The longer the strikes go on, the more private businesses will step into the market to provide products and services. Sometimes it will be directly replacing the service taken out by strikers. Sometimes, it will be working out ways to do things differently, so that the disruption does not matter so much. Either way, the impact is the same. 

It means the rest of us can get on with our lives, and the hassle and stress of the strikes is reduced. Perhaps most of all, it means the unions lose some of their power. No one worries very much if the tanning salons or comedy clubs go on strike. We just do something else instead. Likewise, the more alternatives there are to the trains, or to the Post Office, or indeed the more private alternatives there are to NHS ambulances, the harder it is for the unions to hold the country to ransom.

It would help if the Government eased rules and regulations to encourage that. There are plans to make it easier to draft in agency workers to replace striking workers, but they should be accelerated. Where necessary, licences and permissions should be granted instantly to allow alternative services to spring up. While they need to be properly regulated – no one wants unsafe coaches clogging up the motorways – the red tape and paperwork could be reduced. Any of those changes would help companies step into the markets that have been disrupted by the unions. 

In reality, the strikes are simply illustrating how many public sector monopolies and semi-monopolies are now broken beyond repair. 

Top down, statist, tax-funded or heavily subsidised industries didn’t work especially well in the twentieth century, but in the twenty-first they look both old-fashioned and irrelevant. The strikes might go on for a few months yet. And yet, if the private sector can step up to the challenge, and supply many of the products and services that have been stopped by the strikers, after a while we might not notice any more.

 Alternatives will be available – and who knows sometimes they might even be better.