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The strike by doctors is a huge challenge for Sunak – politicalbetting.com
The strike by doctors is a huge challenge for Sunak – politicalbetting.com
Several of the papers this morning lead off on a strike by junior doctors – something that takes us into uncharted territory.
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They should settle now for the same deal the nurses have been offered (with the cash bonus reflecting higher salaries, but with basic % increases the same).
Sunak should address the nation, saying we can afford no more for doctors than we can for nurses. Any disruption to the NHS, any deaths will be on the negotiators for the junior doctors. They have been told the offer will not be improved. And it will not.
Leveraging the nations's health for NHS pay deals is not something his government will tolerate.
Barclay needs to re-open negotiations with a serious offer.
The university strikes continue too.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/apr/10/junior-doctors-may-keep-striking-for-another-year-says-bma-insider
Pompeo strongarmed Egypt out of their Su-35 deal by threatening sanctions. Not exactly the actions of an 'ally'.
Is stating "tumbling inflation" some kind of groupthink?
In fact I think the teachers union have said we’d accept that. I really don’t want to strike in the run up to exams.
A Labour government would freeze council tax this year, paid for by a proper windfall tax on oil and gas giants.
And we’d scrap the Tories’ non-dom tax loophole.
https://twitter.com/UKLabour/status/1645671918693937153
Unless people's pay allows them free cash after paying their ever-larger bills, there is no money for consumption which contracts the economy and puts more people out of work and thus not consuming either. Unfortunately we replaced capitalism first with bankism and now with spivism. Tory spivs simply steal money directly from the state rather than having to faff around running a business.
Therefore the balance of evidence is she's an idiot. That's one possible explanation.
But I think it much more likely the Treasury are leaning harder on education to cut costs than they are health. For a start, we have already seen that any education settlement will be unfunded.
Again, the grey vote gets what the grey vote wants while everyone else gets hammered.
*Amusingly autocorrect on my laptop changed that to 'Ousted.' Freudian foreshadowing?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11958579/MAURICE-SAATCHI-says-Tories-hit-against-Sir-Keir-Starmer-like-did-Maggie.html
The alternative (resisting below inflation pay settlements) is basically arguing for inflation to be controlled by preventing people from buying what they need at all let alone for inflated prices.
Suggesting that Sunak is not committed to living in the UK has a dubious whiff to it.
Reportedly he no longer has the Green Card. But retains the home, and the business links, and the interest, in the USA.
Seems like a fair thing to throw at him.
There are better attack lines out there.
That is one element that is being negotiated by the Consultants. If not making progress by May 15th, we will be balloting to strike too.
https://twitter.com/BMA_Consultants/status/1642856787341721600?t=oOpQkXhnOZQieLDJFKRMIw&s=19
There is always a difference between paper economics and practical. Food price inflation being an obvious example where even if the paper rate is down a touch, when most of the things consumers buy are still shooting up, its politically stupid to try and insist the opposite is true.
In a police state, the state have the police dawn raid everyone else, not the party in charge...
Nothing to do with cumulative rates.
Sure, it's possible, but it will cost you.
And the government's plan here is dismally transparent. Announce a tax cut next Spring. They won't be able to do that if they have spent the money on public sector pay.
You keep saying it is.
It keeps not being true.
As to the spoofing of the posters blunting the effect, don't all campaigns have a shelf life?
By the way junior dentists are also on strike. I didn’t realise this.
I do wonder what planet these politicians are on, this kind of rubbish just will not wash. People aren't idiots.
*Currently running at 500 per week on non strike days.
I take one look at what my wife earns now and it's actually worse than when she first left the Yorkshire Dales in 2003 - so if you don't like the first comparison there's a second example.
This Government has 4 unfixable issues that it can be easily attacked on (except that any Government using them won't be able to fix them).
1) Why are taxes higher now than ever before
2) Why are public services so bad
3) Why can we no longer do infrastructure projects (see for example HS2)
4) Why is public sector pay so low and how is it going to be resolved in areas where
Have a guess....
We don't really save any money by keeping pay down a percent or two whilst over 7 million are waiting for operations, a significant proportion of which will be off work and not paying their usual taxes.
For young workers renting - painful.
Is it only horny handed sons (& daughters) of toil who can depend on public support for industrial action?
£99 (less VAT) an hour (in his bank account) for a tradesman (after a 12 week training course) to fix your boiler but just £14 an hour for a 7 year trained and 10 year time-served doctor to save your child's life.
My view is that the Junior Doctors are punching themselves in the head by refusing to start negotiations when their pay claim is patently rhetorical, incorporating for example an RPI inflation rate, choosing to hurt patients along the way, and could run out of sympathy in fairly short order.
I'm listening to claims on the radio now about a "hemorrhage of staff abroad", where NHS staff continue to increase. "But but but all the Doctors will go to Australia", which was exactly the same threat I recall from last time a couple of years ago. Did they all go to Australia?
I wonder if the real damage being done here is to the reputation / credibility of the BMA.
Starmer will love it as he will claim that the NHS Recovery Plan is going backwards.
A lot more people will have seen these which combine attacks and promises.
If you are a central banker, looking at moves in underlying inflation is a good way of picking apart what's going on in the economy.
If you are a citizen, what matters is the price of stuff you use. If you are a struggling citizen, that means food, utilities and shelter. I really wouldn't advise telling those people that underlying inflation is quite low right now.