TUC is divorced from jobs reality

MINISTERS were speaking with sincerity yesterday when they said that they wanted a positive relationship with the trade unions. Francis Maude, the Cabinet Office Minister, was explicit when he said that the Government did not want a "stand-off" with the public sector that could escalate into "an autumn of discontent".

Yet the TUC, once again, proved that it is living in the past when it put the Government on notice over a series of co-ordinated strikes that are being proposed in response to the "obscene" axing of public

services and jobs.

The Tory and Liberal Democrat coalition is not to blame for this. The new Government's only mistake is that it had the misfortune to inherit the biggest budget deficit in history from the last Labour

administration – a party bankrolled by the unions.

Of course, public sector workers – and the unions – are right to be concerned at the pace, and scale, of some cuts, though Nick Clegg, the Lib Dem leader, offered some perspective last week when he pointed out that next month's spending review is a financial framework that will last for this Parliament's lifetime.

Yet, "dinosaur" figures like Bob Crow, the general secretary of the militant RMT, seem to forget, with their trenchant calls for a programme of civil disobedience, that Labour, too, would also be imposing draconian decisions if Gordon Brown, by some electoral miracle, had clung on to power. This seems lost on the unions who seem intent on holding the country to ransom rather than learning lessons from history.

Two further points need to be made. Firstly, Mr Crow and his cohorts fail to understand that the public actually welcome consensus politics it is what they voted for in May – and that taxpayers expect the trade unions to enter into a constructive dialogue with Ministers. Indeed, David Cameron has tried to encourage this (unlike one Margaret Thatcher).

Secondly, any unreasonable industrial action is likely to lessen Labour's chances of returning to power – even more so if it emerges that Mr Brown's successor made specific policy overtures to the unions during the elongated leadership contest.