Court delivers justice at last

The Supreme Court has made clear that insurance companies' liability was triggered when workers inhaled asbestos fibres rather than when symptoms of their illness developed.

The suffering that mesothelioma patients and their family members experienced has been exacerbated by the heartless campaign of procrastination followed by the insurance industry to frustrate the struggle for justice.

The Association of British Insurers said that the Supreme Court judgement provided "clarity and certainty," asserting that its member companies "welcome" the clarity and are "committed to paying compensation as quickly as possible."

Utter tosh! They have been committed to stringing out proceedings as long as possible while patients die and their families become more distraught and disillusioned.

Insurance firms have taken their case to the highest court in the land in the hope that they might dodge responsibility for bearing the consequences of their clients' carelessness.

This latest exposure of the cavalier attitude of the employing class to workers' lives emphasises the collusion over decades between governments, businesses and insurance companies to put short-term profit before health and safety.

Despite the dangers of "killer dust" being understood since the 1940s bosses and the insurance industry lobbied ministers to water down health and safety rules, including the need for shipyard workers to be supplied with facemasks.

Countless thousands of workers have died from mesothelioma and associated ailments. They were kept in the dark by their employers and often died in ignorance of the causes of their illness.

Asbestos remains a problem that is still not treated as seriously as it should by politicians, business and insurers. Remember that the next time you hear government ministers rattling on about "health and safety gone mad."

Ta, Daily Mail

Daily Mail columnist Andrew Pierce caused readers' hearts to palpitate this week when noting that Communists, Labour MPs and trade union leaders will all speak at this Saturday's Morning Star conference in London.

Pierce drew attention to the conference theme, For a People's Britain Not a Bankers' Britain, as though the scary prospect of people not bankers running Britain needed no further comment.

To make matters worse, the conference will be held in the "Bishopsgate Institute in the heart of the City of London, which the speakers profess to despise."

He names his "old friend" Unite general secretary Len McCluskey, "champagne-swilling," if you please, RMT leader Bob Crow and Labour MP Michael Meacher but omits NUJ general secretary Michelle Stanistreet. Perhaps he doesn't want to alert Mail journalists to the chance of hearing their union leader.

Our favourite Mail columnist has form on such matters, having previously attacked Unite for choosing to advertise in our pages for organisers to help unionise non-union workplaces.

Unite, like many other unions, advertises in the Morning Star because of the quality of applicants their ads deliver.

It has also, according to Pierce, given £30 million to the Labour Party in the past decade, which, for a union of 2 million members, works out at £1.50 a member per annum. It's not quite Lord Ashcroft, is it?

Let's hope young master Andrew turns up on Saturday to join the red masses and get an insight into why working people are so angry.