I was a senior NHS doctor – and striking staff have my full support

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Our public services, which are integral to ensuring a more equal society for the average person in terms of education, health and justice, have been undermined (REUTERS)

As a senior doctor who has recently left the NHS, I read The Secret Barrister over Christmas and was amazed by the exact same problems between the justice system and the health service.

This, in addition to conversations with teaching and civil servant friends, has led to a dawning realisation that our public services, which are integral to ensuring a more equal society for the average person in terms of education, health and justice, have been undermined by recent governments.

This has been via chronic underfunding and the pernicious undermining of professionalism by mocking the expertise of those working within public services to meet political agendas, championed by their media friends. The frightening consequence is a loss of democratic process for the ordinary person.

I thus wholeheartedly support strikes by the health professionals, teachers, barristers and others in the public sector. They understand that this is a fight for the future of the professions in providing safe universal care and service.

Dr Victoria Madon

Southampton

A rigged system

I think what Salma Shah is missing in her article today is the visceral anger more and more people feel about what they see as a rigged system that works only for the Tory party and their cronies, at the expense of the majority.

Austerity, supposedly necessary to reduce the deficit, savaged public services but still included a cut in corporation tax and a cut in the top rate of tax. As there were no obligations, it was basically corporate welfare, it was used to enrich chief executives and shareholders, not improve productivity, skills or investment – or at a personal level, push up asset prices, such as housing.

Privatisation, sold as giving consumers a better quality, more efficient, cheaper, service, has ended up with basic infrastructure,  essential to our well being and security, used as cash cows. And our railways have been broken, not by striking workers, but a franchise system which also allowed a few companies to make large profits at the expense of the travelling public.

The PPE scandal has also struck home; the government allowing chums to make obscene amounts of money during the pandemic sickened most people (and, no, it didn’t have to happen because it was a “crisis”; no one was allowed to sell us knock off Spitfire copies during the Battle of Britain). Add this to the abysmal rate of growth, the damage to our economy from the Brexit the government chose, the damage to our global reputation from the Johnson and Truss premierships, and the state of the public services after 12 years of disastrous Tory policies.

The idea that public sector workers should take a pay cut and accept the Uberisation of their jobs, while the government and their media cronies whinge about workers “holding the country to ransom” was never going to fly. If you want a functioning country, then ultimately you need to convince people that they are part of it, and benefit from being part of it.

John Murray

Bracknell

It’s obvious who is to blame for strikes

It’s not just the case that nurses and other health staff, including care workers, put themselves on the frontline during Covid, it’s the fact that they have been given minimal pay rises for the last 12 years. Added to this has been the deliberate underfunding of the health service and failure to invest in staff recruitment.

This is not a cost of living crisis caused by the Ukraine war, nor is it a case of creating a spiral of inflation by awarding unreasonable pay increases. The Tories implemented austerity in 2008 to deal with the financial crisis in the banking sector – we paid dearly for the greed of people in this sector. In 2013, David Cameron made austerity the norm, leaving poor people poorer. It was a political decision to bring misery to people least able to cope.

So now when external forces (plus Brexit) create the situation we are currently dealing with, it’s everyone else’s fault except the Tory government. No mention of the assistance given to the people in Europe by their governments who capped energy costs while British suppliers were falling over themselves to hike prices as high as they could.

People need to be reminded of the back tory of why we are being hit so hard now – Tory policies. And it’s not just pay, it’s the terms and conditions that are being eroded. The rail workers and postal staff aren’t being greedy, nor are they refusing to embrace improved technological advances. The most expensive overhead in any business are the staff. In the case of privatised utilities, there is the added imperative to make as much money as possible. The only way management can do this is by making staff work longer for less money.

Those who feel the rail workers are not deserving and are only causing misery need to look at the trains they travel in, the efficiency of the network and the cost of being transported like cattle. They’re used to these standards and now complain when they’re not available. Do they want to add to this by full automation of ticketing and no guards on the platform or on late night trains?

It makes me mad when the BBC gives voice to Tories who blame the current state of the country on working people who have to use food banks to live. David Cameron said the best way out of poverty was through work. Around 40 per cent of working people rely on in-work benefits and many large employers provide discounted food for staff who are short of money towards the end of the month.

The people who need to understand why the country are in such a mess are those who are least likely to watch a balanced programme on the subject and who are most likely to vote for the Tories, believing their masters will look after them.

Susan Hunter

Address supplied

Entrepreneurial spirit

Two in three voters would back NHS nurses taking more strike action to improve their pay and conditions. Yet the government looks unlikely to agree to an improved offer, despite the pay of nurses and other public sector workers having fallen behind those employed in the private sector.

With this in mind, has the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) considered setting up their own nursing agency business, enrolling its members and then hiring them back to the NHS at higher rates of pay?  The government supposedly supports entrepreneurship – so can hardly object!

Roger Hinds

Surrey

Ban hunting with hounds

The commitment from Labour to strengthen the Hunting Act is a very welcome Christmas present for everyone who opposes this dreadfully cruel activity.

But politicians must understand that, after 18 years of total defiance from hunters since the ban came into force, there is no room left for trust or giving the benefit of the doubt.  There must be a total ban on hunting with hounds, with provision only for bona fide, long established drag hunts.  Banning “trail hunting” will not be enough, and would in fact be banning something that does not exist – you can’t ban smoke and mirrors, which are the only substances involved.

Penny Little

Great Haseley