Can Rishi Sunak really take on the unions?

Rishi Sunak is getting tough. Goaded by Labour’s systematic painting of him as ‘weak’, the Prime Minister has threatened ‘unreasonable union leaders’ that if they do not call off their Christmas strikes, he will introduce new restrictions on their ability to take industrial action.

The desire to be ‘tough’ with trade unions is one of the few issues which unites the Tory party – apart from cutting taxes and reducing the size of the state, which Sunak feels unable to deliver at the moment. This is a Conservatism shaped by Margaret Thatcher as she destroyed the post-war consensus, one of the central features of which was the incorporation of the unions into managing the economy, something she saw as tantamount to appeasement.

Thatcher’s ghost still stalks the corridors of Conservative Campaign Headquarters and Sunak’s mooted legislation has inevitably invited comparisons to her implacable approach to industrial relations.