Strikes, Ed Miliband and workers" pain The Labour leader is in a tangle over his party's links with the unions, writes Brian Groom The Trades Union Congress sometimes struggles with the fact that the media seems interested in only two stories: strike threats and disputes with the Labour party. The UK union federation's annual conference, meeting in Bournemouth, has so far been rich in both genres. The phrase du jour is "co-ordinated strikes," reflecting a view that these are more likely to instil fear in ministers" hearts. A motion passed yesterday called for the TUC to "support the maximum number of unions co-ordinating necessary industrial action" against the 1 per cent cap on public sector pay rises. Turning that into reality is a tougher task: low-paid workers rarely strike over pay because they cannot afford the loss of wages. Strikes are threatened by postal workers over pay, job security and privatisation; by firefighters over pension changes; and by teachers over pay, pensions and conditions. Could much be gained by co-ordinating these disparate groups? Despite the focus on strikes, they are relatively rare. So far this year just 216,000 working days have been lost through stoppages - lower than in 2011, when the total reached 1.2m because of a public sector pensions strike, and well below the postwar record of 29.4m days in 1979. As for Ed Miliband, who speaks on Tuesday, he seems to be in a tangle over Labour's link with the unions. The Labour leader reacted hastily to a controversy over the selection of a party candidate in Falkirk, by proposing a change whereby union members would have to "opt in" to contribute to the party, rather than being automatically affiliated. Now Labour has admitted there was no wrongdoing in Falkirk - contrary to Mr Miliband's earlier claims - which raises questions over his judgment. And his reforms, far from weakening union influence, will increase it. Instead of flowing automatically to the party, money will pile up in union political funds, which they could donate to Labour if it is doing what they want. The most serious issue is not about strikes or the Labour link, but the deepest, longest cut in average real wages since records began in the mid-19th century. That generates fewer headlines except, of course, in the Financial Times. Shoring up support For a country that yearns to rebalance its economy towards manufacturing, the trickle of companies "onshoring" or "reshoring" production from Asia can only seem like a good thing. Examples include a decision by the main distributor of the $35 Raspberry Pi computer to shift production back from China to Wales, while Symington's, a Leeds food company, moved its production of noodles back from Guangzhou to Yorkshire. But is offshoring necessarily bad? There has been a lively international economic debate over the past decade, with several studies indicating that domestic and overseas activities can be complementary in their impact on output, employment and skills, at least in the long run. The latest debate is about innovation. One study last year warned that "mass migration [of manufacturing] has seriously eroded the domestic capabilities needed to turn inventions into high-quality, cost-competitive products." But that conclusion is challenged by new pan-European research published on the VoxEU.org website. It found that companies that send factory jobs overseas are more innovative at home: they employ a higher share of employees in research, development and design, and are more likely to introduce new products and invest in production and management processes. Dyson, the maker of bagless vacuum cleaners, seems to fit that profile. It attracted criticism in 2002 when it decided to outsource production to Malaysia, but this year it plans to recruit an extra 650 engineers, half of them in the UK. Earliest northerner Archaeologists have dated bones from the earliest northerner, discovered in Cumbria - more than 10,000 years old. Unfortunately, they had only the leg bone, so I presume they could not confirm there was no chip on the shoulder. Too many fires? Hat-tip to the BBC's Ian Reeve for this 1983 billboard for the Teesside Evening Gazette: "Firemen fight fire in fire engine on way to fire at fireman's house."