Brendan Barber wants fairness

TUC General Secretary addressed the Tolpuddle crowd. He was all shirt sleeves and open collar: the union bureaucracy on their day off, clearly. His speech was presumably intended to sound left-wing: he demanded various things from the government, paid tribute to striking workers and talked about the trade unions fighting for their rights.

But it struck me that the exact same speech could have been made ten years ago. Indeed it probably was. Saying that you want the government to "put fairness at the heart of its programme" is only something you could say if you didn't know we'd had a Labour government for the last eleven years. A Labour government which has pretty systematically gone about doing the exact opposite.

Barber's speech - like his informal attire - was utterly disconnected from the realities of the unions' relationship with the Government, the realities he will return to tommorow when he puts his suit back. The chances of seeing this government promote genuine fairness are about the same as the chances of seeing the present TUC leading a fight to repeal the anti-union laws. which bind them.