TONY BLAIR makes his first valedictory speech today with his final address as Prime Minister to the Trades Union Congress.
Ever since a youthful Mr Blair first faced the massed ranks of union delegates as Labour employment spokesman in 1990, these have been mutually awkward affairs.
Trade unionists know one of their own when they see one, and this Prime Minister has never been one of them.
The hard-Left RMT union, which was expelled from the Labour Party for backing rival socialist candidates in Scotland, plans to stage a walkout of its delegates in an attempt to embarrass Mr Blair as he rises to speak at the Brighton Centre this afternoon.
But most trade unionists at the TUC predicted a more polite, if chilly, reception for the Prime Minister, who last week softened the announcement that he would quit within a year by joking that his last TUC speech would be “to the mutual relief of both of us”.
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One senior Labour source told The Times: “Most of the delegations have been told to be respectful: no booing, no catcalls.”
But several union officials pointed out that they had endured years of being lectured by Mr Blair at conferences without incident, and said the Prime Minister had been given a warm reception by a GMB union conference in June, his last union audience.