Happy Christmas and Slava Ukraini to our Ukrainian friends

Editorial: Let us pause – as it is the season of goodwill, and out of respect for the greater suffering of the Ukrainian people – to count our blessings

Rishi Sunak shaking hands with Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky last month (PA Media)

For Major Yuriy Galich, the chief of the fire department in Bakhmut, eastern Ukraine, “it’s still 23 February”. On his desk is a calendar which is stuck on the day before the war started. “I want to keep it that way until this nightmare is over and we can wake up,” he tells Bel Trew, our international correspondent, reporting from the war’s bloodiest battlefield.

The condition of the Ukrainians is a salutary reminder to those of us fortunate to be hundreds of miles from the front line that, bleak though this winter might be, there is much for which we have to be grateful. There are millions of people in Britain who are finding it a struggle to stay warm, and there are many suffering the lesser hardship of being unable to see friends and family over Christmas. But our troubles are put into perspective by the privations of Ukrainians as they fight for their freedom, suffering power cuts, indiscriminate shelling from Putin’s forces, and the death and destruction of war.

That does not mean we should be uncritical of our government, and The Independent has led the way in calling on our new prime minister to adopt a more constructive approach to industrial relations in the public sector. We understand his argument about the dangers of an inflationary wage-price spiral, but our view is that the crisis of staffing in the NHS – and in social care – is so serious that higher pay is the only way to stem the exodus of nursing and care staff.

It was encouraging, if rather late in the day, that Rishi Sunak on Friday appeared to suggest that he was open to considering a one-off cash payment for nurses. Politically, his problem is that any reasonable negotiation now looks like weakness on his part, coming after the nurses went on strike rather than before, but it would be better to do the right thing late rather than never.

As for the transport sector, the only thing worse than ministers pretending it has nothing to do with them is their attempt to blame Sir Keir Starmer’s “union paymasters” for the disruption. Do we really have to point out again that neither of the two unions leading the wave of industrial unrest, the RMT transport union and the Royal College of Nurses, is affiliated to the Labour Party?

We understand, of course, that there are causes of our current difficulties as a nation that are outside the government’s control, Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and the hangover from coronavirus being two of the most obvious. But there are other reasons why we are poorer at the end of this year than we were at the end of the last, and why we seem to live in a country where “nothing works”.

A Conservative Party that has been in office for 12 years has failed to devote itself sufficiently to the task of delivering basic productivity and competence in public services, and it has given us a form of Brexit that has damaged the economy needlessly.

But let us pause, as it is the season of goodwill and out of respect for the greater suffering of the Ukrainian people, to count our blessings. That we live in a country that is still immensely fortunate in its material wellbeing; that we are free; and that our politics – whatever its imperfections – attracts all who want to enage in robust debate.

We want the same things for the people of Ukraine, and we are glad that Mr Sunak has continued our government’s policy of supporting them in their attempt to drive back Mr Putin’s aggression.

We know they do not celebrate Christmas until 7 January, but let us salute them in advance: Slava Ukraini! May the day hasten when they can wake from their nightmare, and Major Galich can change the calendar on his desk again.