The brothers are back — and they’re setting the agenda

Even allowing for retro-chic, there were some things from the 1970s that most of us assumed were never coming back: cheese-and-wine parties, lime-green bathroom suites, and trade unions setting industrial policy. The little cubes of cheese and the green baths look safely forgotten. But the brothers? They’re back.

In the past few months, trade unions have been making the running on issues ranging from the role of private equity to the responsibility of manufacturers to keep their factories in Britain. Led mainly by the GMB and the Transport & General Workers, the unions have developed a stunt-happy, web-friendly, celebrity-savvy campaigning style that has left the overpaid suits of City PR looking tired and lazy by comparison.

Insofar as Britain has a public debate on industrial issues, its terms are now being set largely by the unions. That may not be a good thing — most of their arguments are either bogus or economically illiterate — but it is a reality that big business has to come to terms with.