Miliband has finally realisde which side his bread is buttered and come out on the side of the Unions. But it was such a long time coming, one began to wonder if the Unions and Labour were in during a trial separation.

As an ex-Union Representative in the public sector, I am always been anti the tying of Unions to Labour and Labour alone. The proposals put forward on party funding that Union members can choose the party to which their fees fund is an initiative that should be supported wholeheartedly. The reality is that most public sector workers join unions, but they do not all support Labour’s dogmatic and uncompromising politics.

Even the strikes, of which only 35% responded to the ballots, were off a lot of people’s radars. There’s no effect on my day, as a non-parent whose bins were due to be collective nor due to have an operation. I would imagine the strikes impacted the same amount that responded the ballot, around a third of the population.

This is echoed in the scenes outside Westminster yesterday evening.

Among the piles of autumn leaves lay Unite and Socialist Worker Party signs, abandoned by the march most people didn’t notice.

The assertions that Miliband made about the government not meeting the unions were countered by Francis Maude’s revelations about actual dates.

the papers, desperate to spark confrontation worthy of the 1970, when most people would prefer to be wrapping Christmas presents, let on to the premise that teachers are being separated from other unions. Factionalism of unions is apparently the Tories “divide and conquer” strategy. The reality is, each union sector is different and failure to knowledge those differences will only provide a poorly fitting solution.

Barber and the other prevalent union leaders somewhat shot themselves in the foot by being unable to articulate a resolution to the crisis. This is cached in “the government will never agree” terms, but they are unable to get beyond the abstract and say what the government will not agree to.

So, the metaphor of discarded strike signs stays with us, people without courage of their convictions, or indeed details of those convictions, to persuade the rest of the country to sympathise or empathise with them.