Labour versus workers?

No matter the Tories’ travails, it should always be remembered that political incoherence is still best done by Labour. Witness Lisa Nandy, the shadow levelling-up secretary, backing both paying customers and unions ahead of rail strikes that threaten to bring the country to a standstill. “We’re on the public’s side on this,” she said. “We’re also on the rail workers’ side.” Make up your mind.

For all Sir Keir Starmer’s efforts to ditch Jeremy Corbyn’s passion for the picket line, Labour remains bound to the union movement by history, resources and activists. Shadow health secretary Wes Streeting made that clear on Question Time: “Put it this way,” he said, “if I were a member of the RMT … I would be voting to go on strike.” This despite the fact that, on a salary of £44,000 per year, rail workers earn 60 per cent more than the national average, while a third of them earn above £50,000. The idea that the unions are today the exclusive home of the authentic working man and woman is risible. If Labour wants to represent the interest of workers, it needs unequivocally to condemn the strikes and come out in favour of countless commuters who need trains to get to their jobs.

Instead, shadow ministers have revealed Labour’s instinctive alliance with union leaders such as the RMT’S Mick Lynch, who said he hoped for “many more” strikes this year. He and they may relish the chance to bring the country to its knees, hoping the 2020s echo the nightmare of the 1970s. But it is the working public, as always, who will pay the price. Labour’s leader should reprimand his ministers and wholeheartedly denounce the coming strikes. That he will not shows his party remains a hostage to the past.