Mick lynch

It's day one of Labour conference and already there's demands for Sir Keir Starmer to quit. With his party well ahead in the polls, you might have thought that would buy the Labour leader some respite. Not a bit of it, for over at The World Transformed festival – the breakaway Corbynite tribute act – Mick Lynch, the boss of the RMT union last night took aim at Starmer's moderate leadership with the oratorical equivalent of a double-barreled shotgun. In a fiery 13-minute speech, the 'people's Mick' told his audience at "The Working Class Strike Back" rally: The working class is back. We need to be in the community with the people who are struggling. We have to tell the Labour party to put your shoulder to our wheel. If you do that, we'll support you.

Sam Tarry, who joined today’s picket line at Euston and gave various interviews from there, has been sacked from the Labour shadow transport team and the front bench. However, Tarry has not been sacked for being on the picket line, but for making unauthorised media appearances. Labour’s line is that this isn't about appearing on a picket line. Members of the frontbench sign up to collective responsibility. That includes media appearances being approved and speaking to agreed frontbench positions.  This morning, Tarry implied that rail workers would not have gone on strike under a Labour government as they would have been offered a more generous pay deal. Given that Tarry is a close ally of Angela Rayner, his sacking will cause comment.

There are plenty of losers from this week’s railway strikes, not least the legions of commuters who found themselves stuck. But one clear winner is emerging: RMT boss Mick Lynch. Lynch has been feted for his straight-talking media appearances and composure under fire. He’s clever, witty and funny. It also helps that he has made fools out of some of those media darlings some British viewers love to hate. It’s surely only a matter of time before he pops up on Have I Got News For You. But perhaps his greatest asset isn’t what he offers but who he isn’t. What sets him apart is how different he is from Bob Crow, the firebrand former general secretary of the RMT. Crow was, famously, the combative last but one leader of the RMT.

Mick Lynch has become something of a break-out star since his round of media interviews on Tuesday. The boss of the Rail and Maritime Transport union has won many fans on the left for his uncompromising views on the industrial action which brought chaos across the country this week. But it seems that, for all his undoubted media savvy, it's far from clear whether Lynch's case has had any cut-through with the public. For a new poll of 1,500 adults for The Spectator by Redfield and Wilton on Wednesday found that, a day after the union walkout, 41 per cent opposed and 32 per cent support the rail workers’ strike to achieve pay rises in line with inflation. This is up from 1 June when 35 per cent supported and 29 per cent opposed the strike.