In my capacity as employment editor, I believe I am the last representative in national newspapers of that once-proud breed, the labour correspondent. The Times recently made its industrial editor redundant and the Guardian’s trade union specialist is leaving. And I am only half a one, since I double as business editor.

The Press Association news agency still has the redoubtable Alan Jones, whose prodigious output allows newspapers to think they can manage without. But it is a far cry from the last time I was on the labour beat, in the early 1980s, when the FT had a team of five and other papers had three. It felt then like the tide was going out, with a Tory government passing anti-union legislation and militancy dropping from its 1970s peak, although the 1984-85 miners’ strike brought a temporary reprieve.