It doesn’t seem that long ago that Rishi Sunak and Co stood on their doorsteps every Thursday night along with the rest of us, applauding NHS workers for keeping us all safe during the pandemic. But following the largest strike in the history of the NHS in December, with the promise of more to come, the Prime Minister and his cronies are showing their true colours by snubbing and scapegoating the same hardworking people they once cynically lauded as heroes for their own political advantage.
Key workers from the NHS, Royal Mail and the railways are not just fighting for a pay packet that will put food on the table and pay rising energy bills. They’re also fighting to protect the services they provide and the safety of the people who rely on them.
In the case of NHS workers, it’s the NHS itself that they are fighting for.
The response from the Tories has not been to enter into dialogue with workers and acknowledge their legitimate concerns about the rising cost of living and degradation of services. Instead it has been to try to blame them for an NHS crisis born of 12 years of ideological spending cuts and their total loss of control over a broken UK economy plagued by inflation.
Fat cats not tired nurses
With the cost of energy bills, the weekly shop, filling up your car, rents and mortgages all going up, the only thing that isn’t is wages. Already-squeezed people are being put under ever more pressure. Meanwhile, big energy predicts £170bn in ‘excess profits’ over the next couple of years, with a further £33bn predicted for City bankers. It doesn’t take Carol Vorderman to work out that it is fat cat profits and not nurses pay that is at the root of our current inflationary woes.
Pat Osborne
for North Dorset Labour
