Did anyone really think that the incoming Starmer government was going to appease the public sector unions for long by stuffing their mouths with gold – awarding them fat pay rises without any requirement to improve productivity? When he awarded junior doctors a pay rise of 22 per cent last July, Wes Streeting told us that he had made more progress in days than the Conservatives had made in months. The strikes were over, thanks to grown-up government.
Not so fast, Wes. Predictably enough, the government’s largesse towards towards the unions has merely served to embolden them. Now they are back for more – and the government finds itself unable to satisfy them.
In the NHS, it is an all-out war of envy, entirely divorced from fiscal reality
Pay rises announced this week have gone well beyond what Rachel Reeves was telling us a few weeks ago were unaffordable. The Chancellor had told us that 2.8
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