This time the brothers won't save Labour

Dave Prentis, your time is nigh. Bob Crow, the country needs you at this hour. Derek Simpson, prepare for the call of history. As trade union leaders gather in Liverpool for the annual Trades Union Congress, their agenda items give no hint of the drama to come. Worthy motions will call forth windy speeches on composite resolutions about rights at work, equality in the workplace and public spending. Newspaper reports will be sparse and television coverage limited to five seconds of shouting from an unknown delegate and a short clip from the Prime Minister’s speech. The press may, whisper it, give short shrift to Salvador Valdes Mesa, the General Secretary of the Cuban Workers’ Confederation.

All in all, there will be little sense of anything important unfolding. But offstage left, Labour politics après le déluge will stir. Anyone with pretensions to lead the party will put in an appearance. Three in every ten votes for the next Labour leader will be cast by trade unions so their invitations are suddenly embossed in gold. As Labour MPs retire, the unions will try to get their candidates selected. The NEC, which is a more important body in opposition, will hold elections in June. This is requiring fearsome organisation under the direction of Charlie Whelan of Unite and (every so often) Downing Street.

For a decade the unions have barely mattered in Labour politics. Tony Blair’s numinous popularity and (to them) mysterious ability to win elections held the unions to an uneasy alliance. But the end of power in the country heralds again what, after all, they really want — power in the party.