Gordon Brown breaks his silence on British Airways strike

Gordon Brown has today broken his silence on the British Airways strike which threatens the long-term future of one of the U.K.'s best-known companies. In a damning criticism of the Unite union he has described the strike action as "unjustified" and "deplorable" in his strongest attack on the union movement for many years. But why has Gordon Brown left it so late to join the fray?

There is a suspicion that Gordon Brown's very public and very strong attack on the Unite union is something of a stage-managed PR affair and ultimately carried out to grab the attention of the UK public. It is no secret that the UK population are becoming more and more annoyed with the union movement with a number of strikes called across many different areas of the UK business community in the recent past and many more expected in the immediate future.

There is no doubt that ongoing industrial action by the unions has the potential to undo the recent recovery of the Labour Party in the opinion polls and Gordon Brown is well aware of this. Whether his criticism will have any impact upon the situation and bring the warring parties closer together is a very different matter.