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Unite general secretary Len McCluskey has let Ed Miliband off the hook with his comment that he does not expect the Labour leader to join striking workers on the picket lines this autumn.

Phew, that must be a relief for Ed, who is unlikely to have had any plans of that nature, having spent the recent TUC conference dissing the expected action over public sector pension reforms.

It is a reflection of the times that a Labour leader distances himself not only from industrial action but any hint of placard-waving. But in a spasm of compassion he at least showed that he understood why public sector workers are angry. Well judged, Ed. 

Sadly, if something is wrong - and the pensions changes are very wrong indeed because state payments are unlikely to make up the shortfall without a huge injection of public spending - industrial action is the only mechanism left when there is no hint of a climbdown or a mutually acceptable compromise.

Miliband's poll ratings today make unhappy reading for a leader in his first year in opposition to a coalition government that was cobbled together on the strength of the respective party leaders' common chemistry - to wit, their parents' choice of school for their sons.

So one would think that his speech at the Labour Party conference this afternoon would be crucial in enhancing his reputation.

Sure, he is expected to include a comment about rewarding people who contribute to society, but even die-hard Tories would find it difficult to disagree with that principle.

Social housing is also on the agenda, with Miliband expected to state that people with jobs should gain preference on waiting lists. Where in the pecking order that leaves those who have lost their jobs due to the misdeeds of City speculators I do not know. More work needed on that one, methinks.

But what we do know is that this autumn could see the biggest workforce stoppage since the general strike in 1926.

And at some point, Ed Miliband, having today spoken about rewarding people who have contributed to life, will have to offer something more than sympathy. 

Picture: Rex Features

Despite changes to employment law since 1997, trade union members still have fewer rights to take industrial action than they had in 1906, according to the TUC. The past week has seen those rights diminish further with Plymouth Council's derecognition of Unison.

It means the union will no longer have to be consulted on pay, redundancies and contract changes, allowing the council to drive through as fait accomplis as draconian terms and conditions as it so wishes. If employees do not approve, well, they can just clear off and work elsewhere. Isn't that the message?

The move by Plymouth is reminiscent of the 1980s. It was in 1986 that Rupert Murdoch was allowed - legally, it turned out - to derecognise the print unions at his Wapping plant (pictured), setting in train years of declining terms and conditions and below-inflation pay rises for employees in many sectors, not just the media. 

The public sector, in the main, has been exceptional in honouring a right that the rest of western Europe has long taken for granted: that of collective bargaining and consultation. I like to think of it as democracy in action, inconvenient as it is to employers.

Recent history tells us that, after derecognition, the employer will cherry pick staff and offer them inducements to forego union representation, thus driving a wedge between the favoured few and the rest of the bargaining unit.

But within a couple of years that apparent generosity will have dissipated as the iron fist replaces the velvet glove.

Suddenly the employee will be isolated, forced to capitulate to demands that would not seem out of place in Edwardian times. Job security? What's that? Workplace bullying? Just wait.

There is one thing about which we can be certain: Plymouth will be the testing ground for local government employers everywhere and it will have the support of the government as Murdoch did in the 1980s. If the council pulls this off - and we are in early days - others will follow.

Picture: Rex Features

I fear Labour leader Ed Miliband has been caught between the tabloids and the deep blue sea in the dispute over public sector pensions. 

He uses his own blog to denounce the government's stance and expresses some sympathy (but that's all) with those whom the coalition is shafting - members of the very movement, the trade unions, whose votes secured him the party's leadership.

Despite this, he shows little appetite for the right of workers to withdraw their labour.

It is plain that Miliband is showing ominous signs of that Labour leadership mindset that distances the incumbent from workplace strife, lest the right-wing press disapproves of any empathy with the employees. He should be reminded that Neil Kinnock, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown had only mixed electoral fortunes using this tactic.

Mind you, the warning signs are there at the start of Miliband's blog, which reads: "Strikes are a sign of failure."

Hmmm. Not if you win them, Ed.

Picture: Rex Features

The opinion poll in The Independent on Thursday's proposed public sector strike makes for gloomy reading. In short, don't expect a cacophony of honks as motorists drive past your picket lines.

We may be living in a strike-lite era, but sympathy remains scant when workers do withdraw their labour. The opinion poll by ComRes suggests a mood among the populace for a legal ban on action should a strike ballot attract a low turnout - sadly, often it is.

The importance of voting, a quick, simple action that appears to be beyond the capability of many British people, cannot be understated. Oh to live in a country that dispenses with the bother of democracy, the refuseniks seem to be saying.

Yet the one issue at the heart of the dispute - pensions - does strike a chord with the public.

The poll showed by 49% to 35% that the reform of public sector pensions was a legitimate reason to strike.

With so much misleading hyperbole about the scale of public sector pensions in the wider domain, it is surprising, but welcome, that this issue should garner such support.

Moreover, it is a timely fillip for the union negotiators and the strikers.

Honk!

These are testing times for local democracy. But the spending cuts are only part of the story, for a trend is emerging in local government to divest itself of both services and responsibilities to its electorate.

We have already seen the rise of the mega-borough, particularly in London, that diminishes or even sidelines the will of the voter.

In other parts of the country a different threat to local democracy is under way. Suffolk Council, for example, is already minded to outsource so many of its services that it w

ill be left with precious few to run, rendering it mainly as a commissioning body.

Now, it seems, Bury, in Greater Manchester - the home of the World Back Pudding Championships - is going even further. 

Without any sort of mandate from the residents it purports to represent, the puddings at the town council have announced that they will no longer provide any services. That's right: none. Instead, Bury Council will become solely a commissioner of services run by the private sector or voluntary groups.

In these circumstances, it is difficult to believe that frontline services will not be cut. Moreover, the public will have little chance of redress through their local councillor because, apart from agreeing contracts with providers, their role will be to meet only infrequently to assess progress (which may turn out to be the entirely wrong word).

The only hope may lie with the local elections in May. 

Bury is a Tory marginal, with Labour the second largest group and the Lib Dems offering little of the support to the Conservatives it does at national level. There is a huge opportunity here to save local services but the electorate will have to turn out en masse if this road to undermine democracy is to be blocked.

Picture: Rex Features

When the Conservatives abolished the large city councils in the mid 1980s, the justification was that they were too big, too cumbersome, to operate efficiently in a society that didn't exist.

A quarter of a century later the concept of society has been rehabilitated - and a big one at that - and so has the notion of the mega-council in the name of, wait for it, efficiency. Few Tories are objecting this time round.

London is the main breeding ground with Hammersmith and Fulham, Kensington and Chelsea and the City of Westminster at the forefront. 

They have conspired to ride roughshod over the electorate which has had no say in the plan for an uber-council with a built-in Tory majority intent on providing service cuts to 588,000 people. 

If the swing borough of Hammersmith switches to Labour in the next local elections, it will matter not one jot, for there is a permanent Tory majority in the other two councils and the increased service provision demanded by the small red corner will be ignored by the big blue corner. Labour will be irrelevant, accountability stifled.

Following the inner London lead, the outer boroughs of Merton, Sutton, Kingston, Richmond and Croydon have advanced plans to merge many of their services.

Combined, they will be providing service cuts to more than one million people, none of whom voted for this arrangement. Pattern developing, comrades? However, unlike the inner London junta, these outer boroughs are of mixed political hues - though there is no overall control in Merton.

Trade unions are convinced jobs will be lost and it is difficult to see how the frontline will be spared, if not this year but next when the mergers have bedded in and all the HR departments and legal teams have been rationalised and there is still a need to make savings. 

The question must be whether these amalgamations are temporary measures, wrought through expediency, or whether they will be permanent, wrought through ambition. 

That no one has had a chance at the ballot box to decide on what are, in effect, boundary changes that influence policy is undemocratic. That the Local Government Boundary Commission has been silent on the issue is downright mystifying.

What happened to small is beautiful? The three Conservative councils in London that plan to amalgamate their services seem intent on regional government - but I fear something more sinister is in the offing.

Local government minister Grant Shapps sounded thoroughly exasperated when he appeared on television yesterday reprimanding Barnet councillors in north London for awarding their senior figures huge increases in allowances.

Boris Johnson beware: your nemesis in London's mayoral election in 2012 could turn out to be Asbo queen Louise Casey.

The word "adequate" is proving a controversial one after the publication of the Care Quality Commission's annual performance assessments.