The TUC conference has achieved limited traction with the media since Margaret Thatcher cowed organised labour by defeating the miners a quarter of a century ago. Not so this year. In approving a coordinated campaign of political and industrial action, the TUC has signalled that the coalition is – after all – likely to face a real fight to implement its cuts programme.

Overwhelming public hostility to the unions, already being fanned by most of the press, cannot safely be assumed this time. That low and middle-earners must suffer grievously for the greed and irresponsibility of City bankers is not an easy argument to sustain, whatever your politics. There’s no Scargill to serve as pantomime villain, either.

Solicitors are not inclined to go on strike and wave placards, however, so how can they be heard above the noise? For heard they must be.

Roger Smith writes this week about how deeply these cuts threaten to penetrate. In legal aid, for example, what is contemplated arguably amounts to a shredding of the post-war consensus on access to justice. But his pragmatic prescription for how lawyers can achieve their own traction with government and the public is surely right. The trick is to remain ‘in the tent’ while occupying the moral high ground, if we may mangle our metaphors. That is quite a challenge.