A MAN of the people seemed to sum it up.

TUC general secretary Paul Nowak’s dry Merseyside humour was clearest when talking about his political enemies.

Speaking to the Morning Star ahead of his first TUC Congress as leader tomorrow, he said his greatest regret since taking up the job last December was not meeting Rishi Sunak or Jeremy Hunt.

It was “scandalous” (but there was “no personal regret”) that the Prime Minister and Chancellor didn’t see the value in meeting unions and the six million workers they represent.

Yet as damaging as they have been, the Tories were as close to yesterday’s news as you could as we sat down for our interview in Congress House.

The former Asda and call centre worker is “ambitious for working people” and wants to see more from Labour on what it will do for them. 

A TUC poll has found clear cross-party support for higher taxes on the wealthy shortly after Rachel Reeves ruled out a wealth tax should Labour win the next general election.

And Nowak thinks Labour should recognise the popular mood.

“The reality is the wealth of the top 1 per cent of this country has grown 31 times faster than the wealth of everyone else in the last decade,” he said.

“I think Labour has set out important plans, for example to close the non-dom loopholes, to raise VAT on private school fees, to level the playing field of the online giants and high street retailers — but I’m ambitious for working people so I want Labour to engage with that national conversation with us about how can we tax wealth in this country.”

Perhaps it is no surprise that 34 years after joining a union aged 17, it was on the picket lines that Paul found his inspiration.

“My best moments on the job have been standing on picket lines with groups of workers who frankly, lots of them have never ever taken strike action before,” he said.

“It was a big decision for them to take strike action but seeing people’s confidence, people realising that they can stand up for themselves, that they can make a difference, it sort of gives me inspiration every day.”

That solidarity should come in useful in Congress, where Paul expects a healthy debate on how unions “breathe life” into their sectors’ “independent” pay review bodies.

Unable to strike, prison officers – in the news again following the escape of terror suspect Daniel Abed Khalife from Wandsworth Prison – have never accepted that their review body is genuinely independent.

Teachers this year accepted a settlement in line with the highest ever pay review body offer for the sector (6.5 per cent), after strikes forced the government to raise its original offer, but have also long been critical of the make-up of these bodies.

“Unions are thinking about what more we need to do to breathe life into the independent pay review bodies, are there other ways to set pay?” Nowak says.

“There will be different solutions in different sectors and that’s probably right because it reflects the different types of members, but I think we will be having that debate but making sure that never again can the government hide behind these so-called independent pay review bodies.”

Far less contentious was an expected composite motion in response to the Tories’ Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act.

“We are facing this fundamental tackle on the right to strike.

“So I think we will have a big composite motion on minimum service levels and the trade union movement’s response, including not only seeking to challenge the law through legal routes, not only to call on Labour to reiterate its commitment to repeal the legislation [but] what do we do if a worker is sacked as a result of this legislation or a union is placed in sanction — we want to be exploring all of our options for making sure we take that Act on now.”

Congress will also be looking at sexism in football in the wake of the Spanish football chief Luis Rubiales’s forced kiss on footballer Jenni Hermoso after the World Cup final.

He said: “We are going to have a really pertinent motion on equal treatment of women footballers.

“In terms of what’s happened not just with the Lionesses but in light of what's happened to the Spanish FA, I think there’s never been a better time to talk about equal treatment of women footballers.”

Looking ahead after his predecessor Frances O’Grady’s “10-year shift,” Nowak speaks with excitement at the likelihood of an imminent Labour government.

He said: “That would potentially be a game changer – in her 10-year shift we were always battling that ideological battle with the government that didn’t see a role for trade unions, didn’t see the value in trade unions and I hope that that situation is going to change going forwards.

“There were things we took for granted as trade unions, that year on year, we improve pay, we improve living standards and this government had a policy of deliberately holding down the wages of working people at the same time while wealth spirals out of control at the top.

“So for me [this is a chance to get to] a situation where we are improving the living standards for our members, delivering real-terms pay rises, working with a government that is interested in solving some of the recruitment-retention problems in our public services, rather than attacking the right to strike and attacking public services.”