Published: 12 January, 2012
by JOHN GULLIVER

I WAS in my Sherlock mood in a cab in Euston Road on Tuesday as it stopped at the red lights.

Who, I wondered, was that man just crossing in front of the cab?

He looked late fortyish and wore a smart overcoat and good shoes. But what drew me to him was his snappy kind of face, a sort of Ray Winstone gangster face, and... his beautifully manicured permed hairstyle.

What kind of a middle-aged man goes in for a perm job, I wondered?

Then he crossed the road and, with his colleague, equally well dressed, disappeared into the lavish new HQ of the union, Unison.

I supposed he was one of those well-paid, well-pensioned union officials.

Nasty thought, I agree, but should union officials, fighting for the common man, lord it over most of them with high pay and perks?

Minutes before, about 100 angry Unison members had been holding a protest in front of the same building, hoping to persuade their national representatives to refuse to accept what appeared to be a climb-down, just before Christmas, by their negotiators in the dispute over pensions.

But their representatives voted by 24-10, I learned, to accept what the government’s chief negotiator, treasury chief Danny Alexander, called a “A Heads of Agreement” as a framework for further negotiation.

In other words, they agreed to talk – and not to be awkward.

When I saw the grinning face of Alexander – he who began his working life as a PR man – from the front bench in the Commons before the Christmas break, I sensed it was all up for ordinary Unison members who had felt disgruntled over pension reforms that, essentially, mean they will have to pay higher contributions and retire later in life.

Don’t think this dispute only affects the public sector.

Large private companies are also following suit – ending their final salary pension rights, for instance.

It is all part of the topsy-turvy world we are entering.