It is said to mark the dividing line between the decades of social democracy, Keynesian consensus, full employment and a comprehensive welfare state and the advent of the leaner and fitter years of ‘no such thing as society’ neoliberalism, monetarism, and ever lengthening dole queues.

To the extent that New Labourism represents Thatcherism lite rather than the full strength version of the creed, at one level we can still be said to be living with the long-term political continuity of those fraught few months.

I’m never going to forget the period at a personal level, either. These were my years of young adulthood; first job, first dole cheque, first serious girlfriend and a dawning political awareness, all set to the unforgettable soundtrack of the Pistols, the Clash, the Buzzcocks and the Damned. All that, and proper class struggle too. So yes, I am nostalgic for it.

Perhaps the watershed was more apparent than real, anyway; what in retrospect more than anything else marked the transition from a kinder, gentler and all round more decent Britain than the one we have lived in for the last 30 years was Denis Healey’s forced turn to monetarism after the International Monetary Fund loan of 1977. Everything else rather flows from that.

Fast forward to 2008, and Britain’s union – who meet in Brighton today for the start of the Trades Union Congress annual conference – are once again seeking to overcome a Labour government-imposed pay cap. Some of them are even considering industrial action as part of the fight.

Ergo, we must – as in really, really must – ineluctably be heading for WoD II. Just check out the papers this morning. In a rare display of unanimity, the Daily Telegraph and the Times agree with the Guardian on this, while the Daily Mirror is at one with the Daily Express. Surely, then, the matter is beyond doubt?

Well, maybe not. Now that the trade union beat is no longer worth a full-time reporter on most newspapers, those writing about these things typically come with little real understanding of the history and the dynamics of modern trade unionism.

‘Unions threaten return to the Winter of Discontent’ must be the lamest cliché in all of industrial relations coverage. You hear it repeated endlessly on each occasion more than one strike is on the cards at any given time. Yet the threat never somehow comes to fruition.

I know that no remake movie is ever as good as the original, but there are as yet no real grounds to believe that whatever plans assorted general secretaries are hatching while down by the seaside over the next few days will come anywhere near to deserving comparison to the events of all those years ago.

The British working class is still suffering from a crisis of confidence in its own ability to fight and win. There are four main reasons for this. The first is that it has still not recovered from the Tory blitzkrieg of the 1980s. The second is the fear of outsourcing either to private companies or overseas. The third is the effect of the anti-union laws. The fourth is the depoliticisation of the few young recruits the unions have managed to secure.

Unions are marginalised, and have become little more than one lobby among many others, with the auxiliary role of unpaid health and safety inspectors. Whatever the fluctuations in the statistics from year to year, two facts remain true in broad brush terms: union membership is at a multi-decade low, while there are fewer days lost through industrial action than at any point since the 1890s.

A series of well-mannered symbolic 24-hour or 48-hour walk-outs are not going to overcome those obstacles, and do not a Winter of Discontent make. The government knows that, and employer organisations know that. That is why neither of them are in the least bit nervous about the months ahead.

In 2008, no group of workers has the clout unilaterally to bust a pay cap in the same way Ford employees did in 1978 when they secured a 17% pay increase, opening up the gap into which many other unions were able to pour. With unofficial strikes now against the law, nobody will take on the role ambulance drivers played in forcing the pace of the fight.

The TUC is well aware of all this, too. That is presumably why the conference has already voted down calls for a 24-hour public sector wide stoppage, in the full awareness that it is unlikely that they could make the call stick.

So what are the prospects for WoD II? Until the rubbish is piling up in Leicester Square and you can actually see the unburied dead in your local mortuary, forget about it.