Junior doctors will walk out for six days from next Monday after Starmer’s 48-hour ultimatum expired without a deal. Their 15th strike since 2023…
Starmer had threatened to pull a package of 1,000 extra training places and pay reforms if the BMA did not call off the action. They didn’t, and now the strike is going ahead. The BMA’s ‘resident doctors committee chair’ Jack Fletcher claimed the government was using the places as “a pawn” in negotiations, insisting the existing 3.5% pay offer was too weak. They want “full pay restoration” equivalent to a 26% pay rise, thank you very much…
Ludicrous, given Labour has already handed them the highest pay rises in the public sector for two consecutive years. Guido is old enough to remember when just ‘getting around the table’ would be enough for Streeting to put an end to this…
Speaking to Sky News off the back of Rachel Reeves’ Air Passenger Duty hike, Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary said:
“Labour is dependent on those Red Wall seats, and yet every move she makes poisons economic growth and damages the UK’s recovery… it’s the Chancellor who stumbles from policy misstep to policy misstep… I think her policy decisions are incredibly stupid.”