On the Hunt

by Rick Johansen

Does anyone else see the irony of the richest man in the cabinet, Jeremy Hunt, – and that is some achievement with this lot – calling the junior doctors’ strike today “completely unnecessary” when he is trying to impose a new contract whilst at the same time suggesting they will receive pay rises of 11%, which is, when you take into account the cuts to other payments, no kind of pay rise at all? And the cheek of the man suggesting that junior doctors are, effectively, simpletons who are being misled by the BMA?

Today’s strike should never have happened, but the you reckon against a government that is, by its very nature, opposed to the very principle of the NHS. The employer has had an age to negotiate a fair and reasonable settlement but they have chosen to take on the BMA instead.

To suggest, as Jeremy Hunt has done that doctors will be 11% better off is a nonsense. Basic pay is being increased by that amount, but weekend working allowances are being cut, pay progression is being ended, affecting all junior doctors in general but women who take time out to have children in particular. But much more important to the general public is the real dangers the new contract will create. Read this from last October and this is why it is important that the BMA’s concerns are meaningfully addressed. I could cut and paste this stuff, but it’s better that you read it for yourself.

I have been concerned for some years how the NHS is under immense pressure in many areas, not least with a growing elderly population. It’s a good thing that people are living longer, but it’s a bad thing that so many of them are not getting the treatment and help their lifetimes of contributions through tax and National Insurance should entitle them to have.

As the government acts like a fascist dictatorship (I thought long and hard about using that term) in dramatically curbing the rights of working people, already far lower than almost anywhere else in free Europe, they demand strike ballots should reflect the will of ordinary members. 98% of junior doctors supported the strike ballot on a 75% turn out. These are not toy town revolutionaries from the far left; these are progressional medics who have dedicated their lives to making people better. What are they supposed to do when all else fails? They have tried talking but the government doesn’t listen.

They come up with the same old “this strike is unnecessary” for every dispute that comes about and the only unions the Tories have ever supported were the scab-led Union of Democratic Miners (deceased) and Solidarity in Poland. What kind of government declares war on doctors?

I suppose they have declare war on doctors because just about every other group of workers, with the exception of railway workers, has long been defeated, often admittedly with the unintentional assistance of certain trade union leaders.

The most of the country de-unionised already, I do wonder if Cameron is trying to finish off the job that Margaret Thatcher started, to do away with what remains of organised labour, to castrate the only political party, Labour, by cutting off all its finances and making low wage, zero hour contracts the norm.

I think the current attack on the doctors is an attack on the NHS and it is an attack on the NHS because they don’t believe in it. The junior doctors must not lose this dispute. The future of the entire NHS may depend on it.

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