Government is never easy – as Labour is finding out the hard way

When Angela Rayner was appointed as secretary of state at the re-named Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Government, I pointed out that Rayner had other jobs as the elected deputy leader of the Labour party.

She is apparently determined to undo the Thatcher government’s trade union reforms that had been so important in the 1980s in turning the UK from a lacklustre economy dominated by unions determined only to protect their own and to hell with other people into one that by the time that government left office had almost eliminated our national debt.

Thatcher ended the era in which successive Labour governments had allowed unions to force workers to join the relevant union, whether they wanted to or not. Those of us who were around at the time saw how massive the benefits were. I was MP for Oxford East in the 1980s and the Cowley car works were in my patch. Strikes were commonplace. Most of the workers had no idea why they were being called out on an almost weekly basis, but they followed because to go against the union was a dangerous path to tread.

Within weeks of the election, this government allowed rail workers and junior doctors to earn huge wage increases with no uplift in efficiency or removal of damaging restricted practices. The unions cottoned on early. This government is a pushover, and push it over is what they are all determined to do. So, the rail workers and junior doctors (I call them that because that is what they are, and most will go on to earn massive multiples of the average wage as they progress) are back for yet another huge pay demand.

It is a supreme irony that the latest chapter in this unedifying saga is that a thousand workers at MHCLG are apparently themselves threatening to strike. The Public and Commercial Services union is leading the charge and says it is being forced to take strike action because Rayner won’t engage with them. One of the changes they want the secretary of state to approve is a guarantee that workers will not be disciplined if they are in the office 40% of the time.

It’s laughable, but none of us are laughing. Personally, I’d love someone to pay me a big rise every year, but for most of us in the private sector working for ourselves life isn’t like that. Let’s see where all this ends up.

Rayner has already been expelled from her own union, Unite, because she made clear she was not responsible for the appalling failure of refuse collection in Birmingham. But that wasn’t good enough for Unite’s militant leader, Sharon Graham, who now says the union should “re-evaluate its relationship with the Labour party” – in other words, the union should consider withholding the funds it currently pays into Labour coffers.

As the Planning and Infrastructure Bill nears its way to the Statute Book, the government has finally realised that you can either have the homes you need or the bats, great crested newts and jumping spiders that will add years of delay to far too many developments. It has at last recognised that homes and other vital infrastructure are perhaps more important.

The HS2 bat tunnel that wouldn’t actually protect any bats is a running joke, but while nobody wants to eliminate species to speed development, taking a more realistic approach to how to preserve those species without adding years of delay is a bright spark in an otherwise uninspiring prospect for housing and development generally.

It turns out government never was easy, and this government, which was hardly blessed with talent in the first place, is finding that out the hard way.