Labour has a tough journey ahead with the rail strikes

Since the Labour Party's birth from mass trade unionism, it has been funded by unions, grounded by the unions, has recruited some of its finest talents from unions and has been routinely embarrassed by trade unionists exercising their right to withdraw labour.

- SEAN O'GRADY

Occasionally, union intransigence has contributed to the fall of a Labour government, as in 1970 and 1979. In other times, Labour prime ministers have scarcely treated them differently from any other pressure group, such as when Tony Blair ludicrously declared New Labour to be "the political wing of the British people", no less.

So it has been a problematic relationship. The looming rail dispute is no different, despite the RMT no longer being officially affiliated to the Labour Party.

These are the first highly disruptive national strikes for decades and are a direct result of the dislocations caused by the pandemic and the added pressure on the economy and public finances post-Brexit.

Conservatives have always used such industrial action to prove that it is they who are on the side of "working people" and to make Labour frontbenchers look as if they support militant leftwing activists, despite the fact that strikes happen in free societies (indeed, are an indicator of a free society) and happen only after a clear majority is achieved in a secret postal ballot.

Grant Shapps has tried to extract maximum political advantage from the dispute.