The ability that people and low- and middle-incomes had in the past to improve their lot through effective union organisation has been denied them by New Labour, and it’s no accident. Ostensibly pro-poor measures such as tax credits benefit employers for whom handouts are better than union organisation, and can easily be reversed by a future Tory government without much in the way of a struggle.

My problem with Denham is that I doubt very much the Guardian could have got the impression they did without some help – in other words, someone at the Denham end was very keen to say “the minister will be talking about equality, but don’t worry he’s bashing lefties, not calling for a more equal society.” Far from paying a political price, this has probably helped Denham – the capitalist press seem delighted by his comments, however misrepresented.

By the way, am I alone in thinking that for the past twelve years the Labour party has been going through a period of “electoral inexpediency”? How else do you lose millions of votes and halve the membership? Never before has Labour in office been so out of touch with its members and voters – perhaps because we haven’t really had a Labour government…