Another case of do as I say, not as I do this week in politics. The Conservatives have decided part of the recipe to win the election later this year is to get tough on the public services.

We all know that the public sector has already seen cuts – and I have to go on record and say I don’t disagree with all of them.

It’s common knowledge that over the years there have been those wonderful jobs in local councils and other parts of the civil and health service which paid well, received a handsome pension and generally we were all jealous of.

I don’t begrudge people getting those things if the work they do deserved it, but in some cases it seemed these roles had become slightly divorced from reality.

However, I must also go on record and say that I believe that fair pay and conditions for those working in the public sector is a must, plus an adequate number of people in order to carry out the roles properly.

Jobs in health, schools, transport and more are vital – if someone doesn’t turn in, it can have a huge effect on potentially hundreds of others.

If most of us don’t turn in, it just means we’ve got more to catch up on the next time we drag ourselves from our pox-ridden sick beds into the office.

The Tories’ latest wheeze is to make it much more difficult for some “core” public service unions to call a strike.

Under the proposals – affecting the fire services, schools, health and transport unions – in order to walk out the first test which must be met is for 40% of all eligible members to vote for the action.

The plan was revealed by the Secretary of State for Transport Patrick Mc-Loughlin.

He said that of the 102 strike ballots held since 2010, nearly two-thirds failed to attract even half of the workforce. In some cases, strikes went ahead with the backing of as few as one in 10 workers.

That’s one point of view I suppose. The counter argument would be that union members gave tacit approval to the strikes by not actively voting against them – they knew the consequences and didn’t disagree with any potential outcomes.

The new proposals also include plans to remove a ban on agency staff to cover for strike action – effectively hobbling the unions as most people would, one presumes, not see any affect due to the strike.

It seems the point of public sector strikes, many of which recently have been called over the Government’s 1% pay offer while MPs look set to trouser just the nine per cent next year, is to inconvenience people in order to deliver leverage to their cause.

In 2014 the Tories had been on the verge of proposing a minimum 50% turnout for strike ballots to be valid.

They also seemed keen on stopping the legislation which lets strikes continue seemingly ad infinitum, ie) a day of action every month, if the first walkout takes place within 28 days of the vote.

I actually have more sympathy, if that’s the right word, with this. Surely it’s democratic that members should vote on every strike or a limited series of strikes rather than giving what appears to be an infinite carte blanche for picket lines and braziers.

But here’s where it gets (even more) interesting. The unions want to think about online voting rather than postal only.

They believe that should be a lot quicker and gain more respondents, thus giving a truer impression of the situation. Did I mention it was also cheaper?

However they say our chums in blue aren’t keen on this – and that seems to be the case with Mr McLoughlin telling head of the TUC Frances O’Grady that he would be willing to speak “in more detail” about any changes.

One would imagine Mr McLoughlin would like to speak about it in a more detailed fashion if the Tories won the next election and then he could tell Ms O’Grady, in great detail, why it wasn’t going to happen.

So at the minute we have a situation where not many people can vote for something to make huge changes that could bring the country to its knees.

I mean, it’s not like that the Conservative Party only picked up 36% of the vote at the last election at a turnout of 65%, is it?

Surely it would be hypocritical for a politician who’s party only polled a measly 10.7 million votes from a potential electorate of 45.6m, wouldn’t it?

You know, less than 25% of people voting for something – by his own maths that can’t be right – can it?