Junior doctors will strike again in June from the 15th to the 19th – their 16th round of industrial action – after the BMA rejected a pay deal following talks with new Health Secretary James Murray. The rejected offer would have left doctors 35% better off than four years ago, with the most senior juniors on a basic salary of £77,348 and average total earnings exceeding £100,000 once additional hours were included…
The government had also offered 4,000 new specialist training places, with the first 1,000 due in August at a cost of £18.5 million. Government officials say this expansion will now be scrapped because there isn’t enough time or money to deliver it…
Andy Haldane, Burnham’s recent adviser on the economy who has not taken up a No10 job, told Andrew Marr on LBC:
“The market now suspects that this is a traditional tax-and-spend socialist government with better TikTok videos…
imposing windfall taxes on oil & gas or on banks or upping capital gains tax would […] repeat the mistake that Rachel made […] The Achilles heel, the fiscal Achilles heel of this government thus far has been its unwillingness and/or inability to cut public spending.”