Brown lurks as Blair and Duncan Smith sink together

There has been no more abject moment in the Blair premiership than last Tuesday afternoon’s capitulation to the trade unions. The grandees of the movement, led by the new TUC general secretary Brendan Barber, were ushered with some deference into Downing Street. The ambitious Trade Secretary Patricia Hewitt, who has spent the past two years sucking up to the unions – or, as her allies prefer to put it, ‘undoing the damage’ caused by her predecessor Stephen Byers – viewed proceedings with pleasure. Finally, there was John Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister, looking smug.

Under discussion was a new settlement between the unions and government. For the past six years Tony Blair has viewed the brothers with a certain hauteur. He has treated them like any other special-interest group – for instance, the CBI or the Green lobby – but has granted no special favours. Last Tuesday that changed. The unions have been incorporated into the formal machinery of government.