Union chief holding Britain to ransom has been branded ‘class war agitator’ not fit to hold public office
THE rail union chief holding Britain to ransom has been branded a class war agitator not fit to hold public office.
Left-wing firebrand Tosh McDonald, 55, nicknamed the Aslan of Aslef because of his long white hair, sparked fury by blaming Tories and the police over the attempted murder of two children.
He also hails Jeremy Corbyn as the messiah and is mates with miners’ leader Arthur Scargill.
McDonald, president of the Aslef union behind the three-day strike on Southern Rail last week, said the shocking attack on two children in 2009 was due to coal mine closures.
Two brothers, then aged ten and 11, lured their victims to a ravine and tortured them in McDonald’s home town of Edlington, South Yorks.
Last week the culprits were granted lifelong anonymity and secret identities.
He has attacked the management of the Labour Party but backs leader Mr Corbyn. He promotes a dodgy ambulance-chasing law firm.
And the beer-swilling, tattooed biker socialised with Mr Scargill and visited the USSR in the 1980s.
And while British commuters lost cash or business during the strikes, it emerged the union has been funding foreign workers across the world.
Writing for Aslef’s Journal, he said: “Edlington made national news in 2009 when two brothers, aged ten and 12, robbed, tortured and attempted to murder two other boys of nine and 11.
“Children’s services in Doncaster came under attack for not protecting the kids and the workers were blamed.
“I’m not saying these bodies were free from responsibility, but the Tory Government which shut the pit and tried to destroy that community must share the blame, along with their agents in the Coal Board and police.”
The brothers were sentenced to five years’ detention in 2010 and granted anonymity until the age of 18.
But the High Court has now extended that to lifelong on the grounds they would be “at serious risk of attack”.
Tory MP Sir Henry Bellingham branded McDonald’s comments “quite appalling.”
He said: “There are many aspects from his past that lead one to conclude that he is unsuitable for any public office.
“It shows we have people in charge of some unions that are not interested in getting a better deal for their members.
“He is running a class war. You just have to look at his record to show he isn’t suitable to run a parish council, never mind what was a great trade union.
“It is quite incredible, this sort of behaviour.
“The guy is running a class warfare campaign and using his members as a pawn in that bigger battle and it is completely discreditable.”
Since McDonald took over his post, the salary for the part-time position has nearly doubled. He was paid £31,995 in 2015, compared with the £16,531 his predecessor Alan Donnelly got in 2014.
He also said last year’s Labour leadership race was transformed when “the messiah, JC, Jeremy Corbyn, came along and we knew we could support him.”
Meanwhile, accounts for the year ending 2015 reveal £10,000 of subs from Aslef’s 21,000 members went to Justice For Colombia.
It was also given £5,640 in 2014 for its campaign for human rights, workers’ rights and social justice in the South American country.
The Zimbabwe Amal Rail Workers were handed £6,000 over two years, their publicly available records show. The Labour Party also received £69,282 for its doomed 2015 election campaign.
Records indicate members pay up to £300 a year, giving Aslef £5.4million from them, with an £8million general fund.
McDonald also urges members to sue companies by using trade union lawyers Thompsons.
In 2010, Thompsons was given a “severe reprimand” by the Solicitors Regulatory Authority over its role in the mishandling of sick coal miners’ compensation claims.
The law firm ended up paying £88,000 in costs but managed to escape a tribunal hearing.
But McDonald told members how to make a claim in an issue of the Aslef journal when he explained how he had won £3,000 for an accident with a lorry.
The extraordinary growth in compensation claims has pushed up insurance premiums over the last few years.
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And he wrote: “In June 2006 I was hit and injured by a builder’s lorry at a roundabout whilst on my motorbike.
“My insurance company just took the £200 excess off me and paid for the repairs. Because the lorry driver denied it was his fault the insurance company didn’t bother trying to reclaim it so the buck would have stopped with me.
“I could have lost my no claims discount and never seen my excess again. Thompsons took up my case, free of charge, all part of my Aslef benefits and I not only got my £200 back and my no claims bonus re-instated, they got me a cheque for £3,000 from the lorry driver’s insurance company, for my injury.
“Thompsons provided me with a free claims service and 100 per cent of my compensation. Me? I’ll stick to Aslef and Thompsons.”
Recently McDonald has had a spat with a neighbour over a pigeon he adopted.
One resident, who did not want to be named, said: “As far as I know Tosh had sort of taken in this pigeon and was feeding it and his neighbour was upset because it kept on messing her balcony.
“They really fell out over it. I don’t know how it was resolved.”
