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When the "revolt" against the Confed pay strike collapsed at the Longbridge Leyland plant last month national newspapers were left with egg on their face.

The "revolt" had been planted, watered and reared with their expert help. The press had once again become a major material force within the anti-strike movement.

Its pathetic fizzle with a bare hundred scabs forlornly eyeing the picket lines must have embarrassed even the rhinoceros-hide of the "industrial correspondents" who masquerade as reporters of events.

When less than a week later their nominated 'hero' Mike Savage said he was jacking in his job at Longbridge, they could not hide their dismay.

And so out of the locker comes Ron Hill-long time hero of the Birmingham Post and Mail-and the man who broke the Longbridge strike last year.

Colin Dunne from the Sun was sent to interview him, if that is the right word.

It reads as if Dunne must have had to take his shoes off to enter the holy shrine of this great man and conduct his questions and answers from a position lying flat on the floor gazing respectfully at the carpet.

Hill has been rewarded with the title "The Rebel" He stares moodily of the page with his arm folded with a caption that reads: "I'm not a poodle. I'm a bloody bulldog."

Dunne's staccato style is like the beginning of one of those novels that announces itself to be about Man's struggle for survival in a ruthless world with the odds stacked against him...

"For two years union rebel Ron Hill has been expecting the letter.

"And when it came this week he knew what it was the second he tore it open and saw the official note"The union he joined for protection had finally got round to persecuting him."

Cut to the quick profile of our superhero:

"Ron, built like the bulldog whose spirit he so vividly evokes sticks out a chin you could break bricks on and growls.

"How can I back down? If I do, I cease to be a man, and, when that day comes I'll dig a hole and climb into it. I'll be finished» "Ron Hill is 48, but beneath his tee shirt muscles stand out like hawsers. As a national serviceman he did a lot of boxing and running. He still does 50 press ups every morning."

However he is still an ordinary working bloke with a heart of gold:

"He lives in a council house at Brierley Hill near Birmingham. He likes a jar with his mates.

"Two days a week he visits his mother in an old people's home."

The article goes on to praise him for a physical attack on one of the militants on the plant.

It seeks a ludicrous explanation for the Savage/ Hill failure last month.

"Only a handful of men supported Mike Savage. Why?

" 'There's a four letter word that affects everyone at Longbridge', says Ron. 'It's spelt F-E-A-R.'"

What is notable about the article-apart from its crude propaganda-is that Hill's attacks are not aimed at a particular leadership of a particular union.

This is not red baiting. The press has moved beyond that-and in any case it is difficult even for the press to see the Communist Party leadership at Longbridge as reds' The emphasis is in this case attacking the most basic organisations of the working class-the trade unions.