Analysis: RMT boss has become key figure, getting public onside with cool performances justifying action

As commuters struggled with strike-crippled railways this week, Mick Lynch, the general secretary of the RMT union, established himself as the central figure in a raucous public relations battle.

Shuttling between picket lines and TV studios, the previously little-known union boss garnered a cult following online for his cool performances justifying his members’ claims on pay and conditions while Conservative opponents attacked the RMT in more heated terms.

This PR war could determine whether the government is able to resist a wave of public-sector pay claims in the months to come.

The Tory MP Tobias Ellwood claimed the strike action was playing into Russia’s hands and urged the unions: “Don’t be Putin’s friend.” The Sun’s front page on Wednesday declared a “class war”, and when Labour MPs joined pickets, Boris Johnson accused the opposition of wanting to take Britain “back to the 1970s”.

But Lynch did not argue back with the tub-thumping tone of Arthur Scargill, a union “baron” predecessor from the last century when inflation was last this high. Instead he evinced calmness, stemming perhaps from confidence that the biggest rail strikes in 30 years were not causing huge public anger.

Clips of him disarming fulminating TV interviewers went viral. He informed Richard Madeley on ITV’s Good Morning Britain he was “talking twaddle” when asked if he was “into revolution and bringing down capitalism”. On Sky News, he told Kay Burley she had “gone off into the world of the surreal” when she asked if the picket would turn out like the 1980s miners’ strike – which descended into violent clashes with police.

“I’m a working-class bloke leading a trade union dispute about jobs, pay and conditions of service,” he said as he became a social media hero for many, garnering millions of clicks and celebrity endorsements from the likes of Hugh Laurie and Irvine Welsh.

But has the RMT won the battle for public opinion outside the social media world? Conversations on Euston concourse on the second day of the strike suggested the union had not lost the public. For every person like Savannah, 24, a recruitment consultant, who thought the strike was “a liberty” given its effect on the public, there were more like Fergal Spencer, a teacher, who said “it should show other people they can try [and fight for a better deal]”, and Rachel Grundy, 30, who said “everyone deserves a fair wage”. RMT picketers reported being surprised that the reaction was not more critical.

Savanta ComRes found 58% of people believed the strikes were justified against 34% who said they were not, while YouGov found 37% of people supported the strikers against 45% who opposed them. Ipsos had public opinion evenly split at 35% supporting and the same percentage opposing. The same poll found 61% of British adults aged 18 to 75 thought workers had too little power.

“They are winning the fairness argument,” said Nigel Stanley, who was head of communications at the TUC from 1995 to 2015, and who said Lynch had shown “authenticity”. He said: “Everyone can see prices are going up and inflation is hitting them and that’s one of the reasons rail workers are getting more support than the ministers expected. Everyone is facing this and the rail workers are doing something about it.”

But not everyone was as admiring. Among those less likely to be supporting the strike were people in the lower socio-economic classes. Only one in three of people in the C2DE categories supported the RMT strikers, compared with 40% in the higher ABC1 categories, according to YouGov.

One gig economy delivery courier in the east Midlands who has seen his real earnings fall to about £9.50 an hour with rising fuel costs told the Guardian he thought the RMT was being greedy. “The greed of some sectors is causing a wage price spiral,” he said. “They don’t need more money – we do.” Plenty of workers who do not benefit from union representation are likely to be feeling the same.

The government and its allies have tried multiple lines of attack, not always with success. The Daily Mail revived a 1970s Conservative campaign slogan on its front page – “Labour isn’t working” – which chimed with party messaging to link the dispute to the 70s, but which one Tory strategist said was ineffective given many voters were too young to remember.

The justice secretary, Dominic Raab, warned of entrenched inflation caused by “spiralling public sector pay increases beyond what is responsible”. Minister after minister described the action as “Labour’s strikes”, but polling showed few believed there would be more industrial disruption under a Labour government.

“If the government is going to win the battle for hearts and minds, it has to show that everyone will have to pay for [the pay rises],” said Giles Kenningham, a former Downing Street communications adviser who runs the PR consultancy Trafalgar Strategy. “They have to show it’s going to make the cost of living crisis worse. It’s a very difficult argument. The unions are very good at emoting and connecting, and the government has to tap into that.”

Robert Blackie, a digital strategist and former adviser to the late former Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy, said Lynch by contrast was good at saying “things that translate well to a social media clip – he’s concise and focused and good at seeming like a human being. He is better than his predecessors who just seemed very hard left.”

The RMT may have also benefited from the way the workforce’s increased capacity for working from home has cushioned the impact of the strikes for some. And, as Stanley suggested, Conservative ministers may have miscalculated in thinking “union leaders are inherently unpopular when politicians are even more unpopular”.