There’s been a spate of strikes recently over pay. Teachers, postal workers, and fire-fighters have all walked out over in protest at the pay deals they’ve been offered. On Wednesday, several hundred thousand council staff became the latest disgruntled employees to down tools, resulting in schools and libraries closing, flights and driving tests being cancelled, and bins being left unemptied, among other things.

BBC journalist (and Dragons’ Den presenter) Evan Davis explains on his blog how the argument goes whenever he interviews union representatives in the midst of industrial action at the moment:

I put what I think of as the obvious points about strikes: “we have to avoid wage price spirals”; “if the money isn’t there for a pay rise, it isn’t there”; “there’s no entitlement to an inflation-matching pay rise” etc.

But on each occasion, the answer comes back that chief executives have not shown the same level of restraint, so why should workers?

Davis admits to being perplexed about how to take things from there. He seems to find the union representatives’ argument persuasive.

He shouldn’t. The union officials aren’t disputing the argument that he offers for pay restraint. Instead, they are attempting to justify workers ignoring the argument on the ground that executives have ignored it. This is a tu quoque. Just because the executives have taken more than they should doesn’t mean that everyone else can too. Pointing the finger at someone else who has done something wrong doesn’t get you off the hook if you’re doing it as well.

Admittedly the situation is a bit of a mess. The economy can’t sustain the pay rises that the unions are asking for, but the unions won’t stand for workers having to exercise pay restraint when executive pay is spiralling upwards. So what’s the best way out? What should the unions be calling for?

Lower executive pay would get the unions the consistency between workers’ and executives’ pay deals that they’re after without destroying the economy. They shouldn’t be striking for higher pay for themselves, but perhaps they could strike for lower pay for their bosses instead.

Student pub crawl specialists Carnage UK have come under fire for encouraging students to binge drink. According to students seeking to promote a responsible drinking campaign at the National Union of Students (NUS) annual conference, nights like those run by Carnage not only damage students’ reputation but also put their safety at risk.

Carnage’s response to this criticism was to list official university events that also encourage students to over-do it. Speaking for Carnage, Paul Bahia said,

‘At Liverpool University the union used to have a flagship night called Double Vision which offered a double spirit for £1, while York University student union promotes treble shots when you purchase a single shot, via their union website.’

Several of the student unions defended themselves, claiming to have changed their policies on discounted drinks. That, however, is beside the point; Carnage’s argument is a bog-standard tu quoque and in no way defends what they do.

Even if the student unions are being hypocritical, doing the very thing that they’re telling Carnage to stop doing, that doesn’t make what Carnage does any better. If Carnage are promoting irresponsible drinking, and the student unions are promoting irresponsible drinking, then they should both stop.

Carnage’s only other defence against the accusation that they promote excessive drinking was that they don’t discount alcoholic drinks at their events, that they are ”not a cheap option”.

That argument, though, confuses promoting excessive drinking with discounting drinks prices; there are plenty of other ways of encouraging people to drink more than is good for them. Carnage’s critics complain about the tone of the advertising of the event, and the peer pressure to drink experienced by students on them, not about the prices.

Both of the arguments offered by Carnage fail as justifications of their actions.