Now the true test of Brown's leadership

Unison has become the latest public sector union to threaten 'sustained and escalating' strikes in support of a pay claim to keep ahead of the cost of living.

The Mail has some sympathy with the union's 600,000 members - including teaching assistants, dinner ladies, cooks, cleaners and binmen - who are being asked to accept pay rises well below the true rate of inflation for life's essentials.

Gordon Brown has endured a largely miserable first year as Prime Minister

In the words of TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber, who blames greedy bankers for our economic problems: 'Asking low-paid and average earners to make sacrifices when those who caused the difficulties continue to draw record bonuses breaches any test of fairness.'

Amen to that. But the full story is much less straightforward.

The public sector has enjoyed an 11- year bonanza under New Labour.

At least 600,000 extra employees have joined the public payroll since 1997, enjoying job security, early retirement and gold-plated pensions that have all but disappeared in the wealth-creating private sector.

In the depths of the present crisis, Britain simply cannot afford inflationary pay rises for this huge army of public employees, without causing real hardship to millions - and particularly to pensioners, struggling on fixed incomes.

Many Unison members know this. Indeed, the 55 per cent vote for industrial action may seem like a solid majority, but a low turnout meant only 15 per cent of the membership voted to strike.

Mr Brown should take heart from that. He has had the toughest first year of any Prime Minister in recent history. But the real test of his leadership is yet to come. Has he the nerve to take on the unions and win?

Or is he doomed to go the same way as Jim Callaghan 30 years ago?

Not-so-brave Boris

No doubt it was politically expedient for Boris Johnson to fire one of his senior advisers for making an ill-judged remark about immigrants.

After all, if he had kept James McGrath in his post, his enemies would have taunted him as a ‘racist’ for evermore.

But isn’t it desperately sad - and dangerous for our democracy - that political correctness has reached such a pitch of hysteria that the Mayor of London feels obliged to dismiss a man whom he himself acknowledges to be passionately opposed to racism?

Seen in context, Mr McGrath’s ‘offence’ was simply to slap down an inflammatory suggestion that Mr Johnson’s election could make older Caribbeans return to their homelands.

One of the reasons Londoners elected the once-outspoken Mr Johnson (himself no stranger to racially insensitive remarks) was their hope that he would blow fresh air through the fug of political correctness that has stifled honest debate in Britain for decades.

Yesterday, he showed he hadn’t the guts.

Speak, Mr Mandela

The Mail joins all Britain in welcoming Nelson Mandela, who as South African president set an example of dignified statesmanship that rightly earned him the world’s admiration.

We also have a question for him. It may be a lot to ask of a 90-year-old, but isn’t there one more service he can yet perform for the continent he served so well?

Why, Mr Mandela, do you persist in maintaining silence over the scandal of Zimbabwe - and why won’t you bring your unique moral authority to bear on rousing all Africa against the murderer Robert Mugabe?