How David Cameron plans to tame the unions

24 October 2009

James Forsyth reviews the week in politics.

There is a reason why Tory excitement about returning to government is so tempered: it could be war. The simple, grim mission awaiting them is to impose the sharpest cuts attempted by any postwar government while radically reforming many public services. The trade unions can be expected to respond aggressively, thinking they can turn Cameron just as they did Heath. A bloody collision of the type the Cameroons for so long hoped to avoid now seems inevitable.

Unsurprisingly, the Tories have little appetite for a Thatcher-style showdown with the brothers. And, quietly, they believe they have developed a strategy that will avert one. They calculate that the unions, while no friends of the Conservatives, respond rationally to threats and incentives. They also feel the unions are still hungry for government money and may be assuaged by the offer of it. In short, they reckon union leaders are hungry for carrots and fearful of certain sticks: that is to say, men they can do business with.

Both sides are beginning to sketch out the ground rules. One Labour backbencher with close links to the unions says that it will be hard to call strikes over issues the Tories have taken to the country in their manifesto, such as the freeze in public sector pay. In fact, he argues, the unions are doing Labour a favour by forcing the Conservatives to be more frank than they might otherwise be as to what they would actually do in government. Every time the Tories are explicit about what they plan to do, they remove a possible casus belli. The unions know that the question of ‘who governs Britain’ was answered by Thatcher.

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Tom Burkard

October 22nd, 2009 5:19pm Report this comment

In education, unions have an Achilles heel which can be exploited profitably. On key issues, most union bosses automatically identify with the nomenklatura that infest the DCSF, school quangos, and education colleges; the people that Chris Woodhead refers to as "the lump". However, most teachers resent the controls that these people have imposed upon them. Whenever I conduct training seminars for teachers, I invariably tell them that it's obvious that the people who have dreamed up all these wonderful initiatives have never served in the trenches, so to speak. No one ever dares comment, but you can tell that they are grateful that someone understands.

Michael Gove will not, of course, needlessly antagonise the teaching unions. But when the chips are down, they are a hollow threat. He could further weaken them by indemnifying ever serving teacher against legal action taken by a member of the public, or (even better) by matching the main benefit that unions now offer teachers: free legal representation for all job-related issues.

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