Why would the government water down and downplay such a popular policy? Because the business lobby doesn’t like it

At last year’s TUC conference, the employment rights minister, Justin Madders, described Labour’s workers’ rights package as “the sort of thing that would make you say to the person on the street: ‘It does matter who you vote for.’” Despite the bill’s initial offering having been diluted, he is right: day one employment rights, an end to “exploitative” zero-hours contracts and a clampdown on fire-and-rehire.

In the midst of abysmal polling, you would think Labour, desperate to prove that after more than a decade of Tory dysfunction the government can improve people’s daily lives, would loudly embrace its overhaul of worker protections. But that is not what has happened. Instead, even as the government has launched a frenzied publicity offensive over its “tough” immigration stance, it has remained comparably silent over its employment reforms, seeming to shy away from letting news of the bill even reach the person on the street.

Polly Smythe is labour movement correspondent at Novara Media