Kevin Maguire
The first national NHS pay strike for 32 years, after the
longest wage squeeze in history, will demonstrate that strikes can enjoy public
support.
Grinding down the wages every year of nurses, midwives, consultants, cleaners, paramedics, hospital porters, clerks, cooks, maintenance staff, ambulance drivers and managers is undermining care.
Government ministers praising nurses as angels doesn’t pay the bills while repeatedly short-changing people demoralises the workforce when it is in the public’s interest that those who look after us are valued.
On the eve of the four hours of industrial action from 7am, a poll for union Unite found 61% of the country believe the union stand is justified.
Ed Miliband and heads of other parties styling themselves as progressive should heed a political lesson from widespread support for striking workers who are the NHS.
That is because people are fed up with timidity, blandness and being expected to swallow a bad deal.
Nurses didn’t collapse the economy and create the deficit. Bankers did.
Yet Tory Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt robs nurses while Chancellor George Osborne scuttles to Brussels to protect fatcat bankers’ obscene bonuses.
If Miliband wants to put himself at the front of a popular movement, he could do worse than joining TUC chief Frances O’Grady on a Camden picket line near his North London home.
It would give Labour MPs something to cheer at tonight’s nervous meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party in Westminster.
I for one am not holding my breath.
Properly deployed, the NHS is Labour’s most potent weapon. The vast majority of us rely on it when sick or injured. No institution better proves the value of public services collectively provided than the NHS.
Right-wing Tories will never be reconciled to the popularity of care funded by taxes.
The NHS is also a shield against Nigel Farage’s UKIP bigotry. Without doctors and nurses recruited from around the world it would collapse.
Beast of Bolsover Dennis Skinner talks about his United Nations heart operation. His life was saved by a Dutch doctor, Nigerian registrar, Syrian cardiologist and a Malaysian surgeon.
It’s not true Miliband never talks about immigration. I’ve heard Tories moan he’s talking again about being the son of a refugee in Britain who fought Adolf Hitler.
But no matter how tough he talks, he’ll never out-UKIP UKIP. Nor does Miliband want to because he recognises Britain is a migrant country.
My ancestors came from Ireland and France. Where were yours from? Talking about immigration isn’t racist but racists talk about nothing else.
I’m not blind to the warts but the NHS embodies much that is best about Britain. The workers striking today are losing four hours’ pay for all of us.
Ed Miliband should tell David Cameron that at Wednesday’s Prime Minister’s Questions.
Grinding down the wages every year of nurses, midwives, consultants, cleaners, paramedics, hospital porters, clerks, cooks, maintenance staff, ambulance drivers and managers is undermining care.
Government ministers praising nurses as angels doesn’t pay the bills while repeatedly short-changing people demoralises the workforce when it is in the public’s interest that those who look after us are valued.
On the eve of the four hours of industrial action from 7am, a poll for union Unite found 61% of the country believe the union stand is justified.
Ed Miliband and heads of other parties styling themselves as progressive should heed a political lesson from widespread support for striking workers who are the NHS.
That is because people are fed up with timidity, blandness and being expected to swallow a bad deal.
Nurses didn’t collapse the economy and create the deficit. Bankers did.
Yet Tory Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt robs nurses while Chancellor George Osborne scuttles to Brussels to protect fatcat bankers’ obscene bonuses.
If Miliband wants to put himself at the front of a popular movement, he could do worse than joining TUC chief Frances O’Grady on a Camden picket line near his North London home.
It would give Labour MPs something to cheer at tonight’s nervous meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party in Westminster.
I for one am not holding my breath.
Properly deployed, the NHS is Labour’s most potent weapon. The vast majority of us rely on it when sick or injured. No institution better proves the value of public services collectively provided than the NHS.
Right-wing Tories will never be reconciled to the popularity of care funded by taxes.
The NHS is also a shield against Nigel Farage’s UKIP bigotry. Without doctors and nurses recruited from around the world it would collapse.
Beast of Bolsover Dennis Skinner talks about his United Nations heart operation. His life was saved by a Dutch doctor, Nigerian registrar, Syrian cardiologist and a Malaysian surgeon.
It’s not true Miliband never talks about immigration. I’ve heard Tories moan he’s talking again about being the son of a refugee in Britain who fought Adolf Hitler.
But no matter how tough he talks, he’ll never out-UKIP UKIP. Nor does Miliband want to because he recognises Britain is a migrant country.
My ancestors came from Ireland and France. Where were yours from? Talking about immigration isn’t racist but racists talk about nothing else.
I’m not blind to the warts but the NHS embodies much that is best about Britain. The workers striking today are losing four hours’ pay for all of us.
Ed Miliband should tell David Cameron that at Wednesday’s Prime Minister’s Questions.
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