Both doctors and the government are handling this strike badly – that’s why there is no end in sight | Polly Toynbee
With the BMA making ‘impossible’ demands and Labour responding with Trumpian threats, negotiations are stuck – and it’s the NHS that will sufferWhat’s the off-ramp? When I ask one of...
By Polly Toynbee · The Guardian Opinion
With the BMA making ‘impossible’ demands and Labour responding with Trumpian threats, negotiations are stuck – and it’s the NHS that will suffer What’s the off-ramp? When I ask one of the negotiating team close to the health secretary, the bleak answer is, “I don’t know.” Resident doctors in England are on another strike , for six days this time. Labour arrived in office bearing a 22.3% pay rise to end the strike it inherited – and it thought it was all over. But within a year, doctors were out again. This time, negotiations over many weeks seemed to go well, but fell at the last fence: the doctors claimed there was a last-minute watering down and they returned to their fixed stand – restore their pay to its 2008 level, another 26%. “Impossible” is Wes Streeting’s line. He says resident doctors are “by a country mile the standout winners of the entire public sector workforce when it comes to pay rises”. Everything looks stuck, no pasaran on both sides. Why? Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...