Richard Balfe, the former MEP whom David Cameron appointed to set up better links between the Tories and the unions, is surely wondering about his job in light of the Tory attacks on unions earlier today.
Cameron tasked Balfe to be the Tories' union envoy two years ago with a brief to create goodwill with the trade union movement by persuading the country's 6 million-plus members that the Tories are "not out to get them".
"It's to reassure them that we want to know them and that the days of Thatcher are past," said Balfe at the time, who was once a Labour party member before he defected to the blues.
It was always going to be a tough gig for the optimistic Balfe since many trade union activists see the Conservatives as having done very little for workers' rights since an initial good deed a couple of centuries ago when the party legalised them.
Nonetheless, many trade union leaders met with Balfe, or assigned their senior officials to do so. Some did more quietly than others but the spirit of goodwill was apparent on both sides.
So what was Balfe thinking this morning as he sat in the press conference earlier today to hear the Tory party chairman, Eric Pickles, laud Tony Blair's long stint as Labour leader because he claimed that the former prime minister "mostly kept the unions at bay, often facing down demands for leftwing policies that would have stifled enterprise and prevented reform".
Unlike now, went on Pickles, when "Unite and the other big trade unions are calling the tune and the effects are clear: part-privatisation of the Royal Mail has been abandoned; the flagship academies programme has been sidelined; and new burdens on business, such as the agency workers directive, have been imposed."
Michael Gove's reference to "dinosaurs' also jumped out, as did the sneer about Labour 'going to bed with the past'. A call to Tory central office confirms that Balfe is still in post. Is he beginning to think he might be wasting his time?
