Unions need a voice and HSBC needs a chairman: I name my candidates

The British trade union movement needs to get a grip on itself.

The British trade union movement needs to get a grip on itself. These days, the public associates the brotherhood of organised labour chiefly with the bizarre antics of the highly politicised Unite union, with its warring and tweeting joint general secretaries and its out-of-control airline cabin crew branch hellbent on destroying their own livelihoods by driving BA to bankruptcy in a dispute over travel perks. Yet at a time when jobs are at the top of the political agenda — the impending loss of them in the public sector, the urgent need to generate more of them, with higher skills, especially for young people, in the private sector — the workforce needs an articulate voice. This thought occurred to me while I was watching coverage of George Osborne’s first £6.2 billion worth of spending cuts: a man on a park bench in a casual shirt was being invited to comment, and I genuinely had no idea who he was until the caption announced him as TUC general secretary Brendan Barber.

By contrast, I would still easily recognise several of his powerful predecessors, including Vic Feather and Len Murray from the 1970s and 1980s. Indeed, when I tested myself, I found I could even pick out of a group photo the bushy eyebrows of George Woodcock, who came into the job half a century ago. But under the uncharismatic Barber, who has been in post for seven years, the TUC has become little more than an employment law think tank, producing reports nobody reads. I’m not advocating a return to the days of beer and sandwiches at No. 10, but I think the brothers should at least find themselves a high-profile spokesman capable of keeping the likes of Tony Woodley and Derek Simpson of Unite in line.