Hands up everyone who has pulled a sickie recently. Come on, own up. A hangover that you passed off as “a 24-hour bug”, was it? Fancied attending an away match so you blamed a dodgy prawn? Well, you work hard, don’t you? Call it payback from your boss. He can afford it.

On the face of it the current scrap between British Airways and its cabin staff seems to confirm our prejudices about Sicknote Britain. What? They want time off for ingrown toenails, diarrhoea and herpes without it counting as sick leave, people splutter. Bloody malingerers.

Meanwhile, the BA chief executive highlights how much absenteeism appears to coincide with “sunny August days and major sporting events”. But can everyone carping at BA staff themselves declare a clear conscience? A CBI survey suggests not. In 2005, 94 per cent of employees admitted throwing a sickie. Most workers have extended their weekend with “Mondayitis”. So why not BA crew?

There is a curious inconsistency to our indignance about workplace liberty-taking. Those who moralise about a colleague having flu “again” are often the same people helping themselves to fistfuls of Biros from the stationery cupboard and making phone calls from their desk to their cousin in Australia.

It is the same illogicality that sees a TV presenter doing a playful piece from Branscombe beach about looters filling their boots, the pillagers arguing that “it’s all insured anyway”. Isn’t that what burglars say when they target houses? Why are some “crimes” different to others? Could it be that people are more outraged over BA staff’s planned strike action because it could mean cancelled holidays? I can’t imagine people would give two hoots about the sick-leave record at a Tupperware factory.

The T&G claims that BA staff are too frightened of management to call in sick. However, anecdotal evidence (ie, a quick straw poll conducted by me) shows few people believe them.

I dislike a malingerer as much as the next person, but it seems we are quicker to judge some sections of the workforce than others. The public sector, for instance, is the butt of many a joke. But some public workers do the grimmest jobs — wiping old people’s bottoms, clearing out drains — for relatively low pay. Surely they are more likely to fall ill? I have no idea whether the BA crew have a valid beef but theirs strikes me as an unhealthy occupation, what with all that recycled cabin air.

And their claim that they cannot operate when suffering certain ailments seems quite sensible. Imagine an air stewardess operating one of those clunking great food trolleys with an ingrowing toenail? Or, god forbid, pushing to the front of a long lavatory queue with the runs.

Cabin staff are employed partly as eye candy — the glamorous, smiling face of the airline. Ask yourself how you would feel if the face serving your foil-wrapped meal was covered in cold sores.

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