Is Keir Starmer’s plan to help workers the start of a new era – or no big deal?

Most of this country’s 6.4 million trade unionists – barely a fifth of all employees, compared with more than half in 1979 – have more experience of defeats and rearguard actions, of trying to defend their remaining rights, than of moments of opportunity. That this new opportunity is being offered by a Labour party that has moved sharply to the right under Starmer makes it all the more disorienting.