My view is that you still in order to win from the Labour perspective have to have a strong alliance with business as well as the unions. You have got to be very much in the centre ground on things like public sector reform.

I propose that the government should get out of the business of marrying people and instead only give legal status to civil unions.

The unions say 'last hired - first fired ' we say hire and fire based on merit. We want the best and brightest in the classroom.

Hence within the space of two generations there has been a complete revolution in the attitude of the trades-unions toward the women working in their trades.