Machismo is no way to beat the unions: I prefer Cameron’s quiet approach

David Cameron is absolutely right to avoid at all costs a confrontational tone in ministers’ approach to the coming showdown with the public sector unions.

David Cameron is absolutely right to avoid at all costs a confrontational tone in ministers’ approach to the coming showdown with the public sector unions. Our editor, Fraser Nelson (‘Strike and counterstrike’, 2 July), is absolutely right to insist that the Prime Minister and his Cabinet must not blink. But The Spectator’s and Mr Cameron’s approaches are entirely reconcilable. The bigger the stick you carry, the more softly you can speak.

Implicit in Fraser’s column is a linkage between Cabinet decrees that ministers should avoid aggressive language, and his suspicion that this presages a climbdown by government. Perhaps a serious U-turn is coming, but I should be surprised. There are other very potent reasons for a conciliatory tone, as I shall try to explain.

It is essential that the coalition government avoid looking like the side that wants to pick a fight. Support within the unions for action is flimsy, as Fraser points out. Among the majority of public servants who have not voted, many will not have made up their minds. It would be against human nature for them to be friendly to the pension changes proposed — these leave most of them worse off — so the weak support union leaders receive for industrial action will be because many of their members feel that their ultimate employer, the government, faces a difficult position. They hesitate to strike, uncertain, too, whether their union leaders’ front-foot aggression is the best way to salvage what they can.

Why antagonise these people? It’s desperately important for the employers to get the tone right. Nearly all the arguments are on the government’s side; it isn’t easy for public servants to turn the lights out; strikes look unlikely to bring victory; and millions of public servants are still unconvinced that industrial action is wise.