When Gordon Brown was in his prime, at the UK Labour party conference in September 2000, bloc-vote wielding trade union leaders voted to restore a link between pensions and average earnings.

Mr Brown, then chancellor of the exchequer, retorted: “I’m not going to give in to the proposal that came from the union leaders today ... I’m listening to the whole community.” He is no longer in his prime, but merely prime minister; and listening to the whole community, or that part of it for which the news media and the polls claim to speak, is a grimmer business than listening to the Labour party conference, grim as that can be.