Richard Balfe has a job that would have been inconceivable a few years ago. Now it is merely regarded with suspicion. The former Labour MEP and now member of the Conservative Party is David Cameron’s envoy to the trade union movement.

The trouble is, not all of the unions want to be envoyed to by the Conservatives. It is perhaps a surprise that any of them do so, given the party’s past animosity towards them. But Mr Balfe says that most engage in some form of contact, even if they are not prepared publicly to acknowledge top-level meetings.

He says he is keen to encourage dialogue as the Conservatives draw up policies to fight next year’s election. His appointment, made a year ago, was designed to show that the Conservatives have changed and that the old battles, waged especially under the Thatcher Government, are in the past.

Mr Balfe says: “I know of no agenda to take on the trade unions or to make life difficult for them. We are not in the business of provoking a fight with the unions and that is really a very important thing because it puts us in a good position where we are seeking to work with them in a consensual relationship.”

The olive branch put out to the unions is not only altriusm and a sign of change. It is partly a play for votes. The Conservatives believe that there are votes to be had in the unions because not all are Labour supporters.

Mr Balfe carries out envoy duties about two days a week. Last year he spent the full week at the annual TUC Congress and he will do so again this year. He believes he has made substantial progress with some smaller unions, such as Prospect, the engineering and professional union.

But others are resistant. The National Union of Mineworkers, which this month is marking the 25th anniversary of the long and bitter miners’ strike, will not meet the Tories’ envoy. Neither will the RMT, which was expelled from the Labour Party for allowing its branches to support socialist political candidates. Another union whose door remains closed is Mr Balfe’s own – Unite.

The Tories’ workplace tsar has been a union member throughout his adult life. At 16 he joined the shopworkers’ union when he started work as a clerk in a bakery. Then he was a member of civil service unions before joining a forerunner union to one half of Unite, the AUEW-Tass. That union eventually became part of the AEEU, which joined with the MSF, in an unhappy merger, to become the inappropriately named Amicus. Now Amicus has joined with the T&G, in a fraught coming together, to become the also ironically named Unite.

In the first merger, Amicus was mired in controversy over the spending of one of its general secretaries, as it is now. Roger Lyons, the former general secretary of MSF, once famously charged a bun – although he insisted it was a croissant – to his union credit card. Now it is Derek Simpson, the newly reelected leader of the Amicus half of Unite, who is in the spotlight, not least for living in an £800,000 grace-and-favour house, taking helicopters to the Glastonbury festival, and staying at the Waldorf.

Mr Balfe says that Mr Simpson’s election win, in which he beat three other candidates on a low turnout, was “a bad day for Unite”.

“He makes Roger Lyons look like an ascetic monk,” he says, adding: “It’s well known that there is tension between Woodley [Tony Woodley, the other joint general secretary] and Simpson and this could have ended it. I didn’t vote for him. I don’t think he is good for Amicus, he is not the right person.”

Mr Balfe also berates Mr Simpson and Mr Woodley for refusing to meet him, saying that they are not representing their members by not trying to influence the policies of a party that could form the next government.

“If I were a Unite member in the banking industry I’d be pretty furious that he is refusing to talk to the Conservative Party. Smaller banking unions are talking to us. Amicus members are not being represented because their general secretary chooses not to represent them.”

But clearly some union leaders have ideological difficulties in liaising with their old foes and will be true to Labour until their last breath. Not so Mr Balfe. He broke ranks with the party several years ago, or rather it broke ranks with him after a row in which the long-serving MEP accused his party of being control freaks and suppressing debate on the euro.

But he says that the transition to the Conservatives has not been that difficult because he sees them as a changed party. “I don’t think I could have joined the party under Thatcher.

Labour did make it easy by throwing me out, but I don’t think I could have joined Thatcher’s Conservatives. I would probably have joined the Liberals. I am a liberal capitalist, to be honest, always have been.”

In fact, he believes that the change of position of both main parties means that a new relationship with the unions is also important to both.

“You have got a situation now where the Conservative and Labour parties have overlapped so significantly that the ideological collapse of both parties must be mirrored in a new relationship with the unions, just as it is mirrored in a new relationship with business.”

But Mr Balfe says there are limits to the party’s aspirations in dealing with the unions and that it is not on the agenda to attempt to fundamentally undermine the link between Labour and the unions. “It’s not our aim to pull them away from Labour. We are not trying to have Conservative unions. What we are aiming for is what John Monks [the leader of the European TUC] said to me and that is to surprise them. We are looking to get to a situation where the unions will say after the Conservatives have been in for a period of time, well they are not that bad, are they?”

CV

Born March 14, 1944 Barton Mills, Suffolk

1958-61Lived in a children’s home in Sheffield

1960 First job in a bakery, joined shopworkers’ union

1961 Moved to London, worked at the Crown Agents for Overseas Governments

1965-70 Worked at the Foreign Office

1970 Resigned from the Foreign Office to stand for Parliament. Became research officer for the Finer Committee on One-Parent Families, which reported to Sir Keith Joseph

1973-77 Member of the Greater London Council

1973-79 Political secretary of the Royal Arsenal Coop

1979-2004 Member of the European Parliament

December 2001 Expelled by the Labour Party after a row

March 2002 Joined the Conservative Party

March 2008 Appointed as the trade union envoy of David Cameron

Family Married, three children

Q&A

Who, or what, is your mentor? I always remember I grew up for part of my childhood in a children’s home. Many of those I left behind have not been as fortunate as I have been

Does money motivate you? No, but it is a very useful commodity and you certainly miss it if you have none

What was the most important event in your working life? Deciding to leave the Foreign Office, which meant swapping a life of certainty for one that was much less secure

Who do you most admire? Everyone has feet of clay, but Pope John XXIII, below, was the nearest to an exception

What gadget must you have? A radio tuned to Radio 4

What does leadership mean to you? Making defensible decisions in a crisp way and communicating them in clear language to those affected

How do you relax? Reading mainly biographies, playing with the dog and talking to my family and friends