George Osborne will give you a pay rise. But he won’t let you fight for one

The chancellor's higher minimum wage will benefit the low-paid. But the Tories' trade union bill simultaneously strips them of their bargaining power at work

The backlash has begun. CBI director general John Cridland last week joined the bosses of Next, Whitbread and Wetherspoons in expressing concern about the impact of George Osborne's "national living wage", which Cridland described as "a gamble".

It is a gamble. Churlish Corbynites might complain that the 9 or so which over-25s will have to be paid by 2020 is still well below any realistic estimate of the income required to cover basic needs - rent, food, bills and so on.

Without the right to strike, few of the past century's seminal advances in pay and conditions would have been won