Frances O’Grady, the first woman to lead the UK’s Trades Union Congress, was also in January one of only a few trade unionists to attend the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland – an annual gathering of the globe’s elite of bankers, financiers and economic policymakers.

It wasn't the most natural milieu for a trade unionist but O'Grady said everyone was perfectly polite and pleasant until an American with pronounced right-wing views began talking loudly in her earshot about how US teachers' unions are "destroying aspiration" among American children.