Striking nurses and doctors would be disastrous for the NHS

A sick joke

The GOVERNMENT’s talks with the young doctors’ union leaders seem futile, while the British Medical Association is sticking to its unrealistic wage demand of 35 per cent.

But if there’s any argument for Health Secretary Steve Barclay meeting them, it’s that he should tell them face to face that their demands are ridiculous.

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Then perhaps meaningful negotiations can take place.

As long as the future numbers are being talked about, a minority of nurses will think that by forcing the government to ransom them, they too can get close to the absurd raise demanded of their medical colleagues.

Why else did they turn down an offer that was lauded by their own union last month and accepted by Unison members?

The head of the Royal College of Nursing, Pat Cullen, has had to do an embarrassing about-face, saying the concessions she had previously allegedly extorted from the government were suddenly no longer enough.

The next 48-hour nurses’ strike will include emergency rooms, intensive care units and cancer wards, she says, and she also refuses to rule out the possibility of nurses striking at the same time as junior doctors.

Such action would be disastrous for the NHS and would seriously damage the RCN’s reputation.

women problems

KEIR Starmer’s hypocrisy is stunning.

First, the Labor leader authorized a personal attack on Rishi Sunak’s record of imprisoning pedophiles when Starmer himself, a former chief prosecutor, sat on the sentencing committee that recommended not putting all child molesters behind bars.

Now the latest Labor ads will seek to attack the Prime Minister for his handling of women’s issues – from a party whose leader can’t even tell what a woman is.

Voters should look to Labor MP Rosie Duffield, who has been bombarded with misogynist abuse from her own side for daring to stand up for women’s right to same-sex spaces like dressing rooms, to see how supportive Starmer’s party is for women is.

At the time, she compared working at work to an abusive relationship.

So it’s a bit rich for Starmer to claim his Tory rival is the one with the bad record.

Drag the other

LONDON Mayor Sadiq Khan is trying to justify the shying away of hard-pressed motorists with an extended Ultra Low Emissions Zone, claiming that improving air quality will keep men from swooning.

But he also says that nine out of ten vehicles are already Ulez-compliant.

So his claim of reducing car emissions to increase men’s emissions doesn’t hold up.