FORTY-FIVE years of Thatcherism have left our health, social care, local government and education systems wrecked, Mick Lynch told a packed eve-of-Gala in Durham on Friday night.

Addressing the joint Campaign for Trade Union Freedom-Institute of Employment Rights fringe meeting, the RMT leader said the new government had a chance to change course from the “unabated” neoliberalism that had hollowed out the public realm ever since the defeat of the miners’ strike 40 years ago.

But unions should not trust to politicians to do that: “We are an independent workers’ movement and we believe in socialism — that’s what we want, not just some reforms,” he urged.