The government needs to think before it acts on nursing strikes

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These workers are using the only power they have to get the government to listen (Getty)

On the sad week that nurses feel the need to strike, maybe it’s time for Rishi Sunak and his ministers to pause and think about why these people with a caring vocation feel they need to do this for the first time ever.

They are simply joining many other working people who see rising prices for the everyday things they need just to survive, and want public services that actually work for them.

The answer is not, as Sunak has suggested, to bring in legislation to make striking illegal, but instead to listen to why people feel so desperate that they have no other course of action, and put together a government agenda that makes life better for everyone in this broken country. These workers are using the only power they have to get the government to listen.

Many strikers have the backing of other ordinary working people – again, something those in power need to pause and reflect on.

Anna Taylor

Sunbury-on-Thames

One for the history books

Future historians will marvel at the predictable fiasco of Brexit.

Cameron was, as John Rentoul says, probably right to hold the Referendum given the sound and fury of the Brexit debate.

But he made two crucial mistakes: firstly, he should have specified in advance a two-thirds majority for such a major constitutional change – an almost standard principle throughout the democratic world.

Secondly, with such a close result he should then have said that it did not represent a clear enough majority of the electorate for such a momentous change, and should have declared that Brexit would not proceed.

It would have required guts to stay on and face the rage of the Farragistes and no doubt some civil disturbances; but we would today be in a much better place. We are now lumbered with the leaders of both major parties, who must know what damage Brexit has already done, but who are terrified even to mention the word, or to hint at any sort of rapprochement with the EU, because they cannot trust the opinion polls and fear an electoral wipeout.

Well, the Tories are going to suffer that wipeout anyway, and may well be terminally split. Perhaps then we can have a more balanced debate, considering all the things that have gone wrong since Brexit, and start to plan for a return to the EU fold, even if not on such favourable terms as before.

Gavin Turner

Norfolk

Keir Starmer should worry more about people than polls

So here I am in my mid-Seventies. I listen to the sound bites from Prime Minister’s Questions, and find myself exasperated.

Keir Starmer is constantly juggling his questions, trying not to lose points for fear of reducing his presumed poll lead.

He is the leader of the Labour Party; that means looking after the interests of working-class people – people who at the beginning of the last century formed the movement along with the unions – and as such he shouldn’t be afraid to ask the hard questions.

He should also demand another penny or two on income tax to pay for Nurses and the rest of our social services. We will only get out of this almighty mess by changing the system, and that means altering the balance between the haves and the have nots.

Peter Morrell

Address Supplied

Regulation, not prohibition

Oliver Keens makes an eloquent and impassioned plea to cocaine users regarding the damage they are causing to society (15 December).

The problems he outlines may not be solved, but would certainly be mitigated, by regulation of the industry.

The evidence strongly – if not overwhelmingly – supports this position.

Just because prohibition is popular with people who bother to get out and vote doesn’t mean that it works.

Michael O’Hare

Northwood

We are failing the poorest among us

How much money is there in the UK? Does anybody know what the total value of all the assets in the UK is?

This is not a simplistic argument for some sort of equal distribution, but out of interest, if it were all to be divided equally amongst the whole population, how much would each individual have?

However you might look at it, it would be hard not to argue that the economic systems we work by are failing a very large number of people who have no means of altering their own circumstances in any effective way.

I am 88, have earned reasonably well throughout my working life and am now in the position, without being anything like what one might consider “rich”, of not having to worry about whether I can pay for food, heating and living comfortably, and having paid off my mortgage some twenty years ago.

Nobody particularly likes paying more tax, but I would willingly do so if there were some significant benefit from that. I would suppose that there must be many thousands of people in a similar situation, even if they might be less willing to pay more tax.

I recently read that some footballers are paid a million pounds a week. No doubt a lot of that goes back in tax (assuming they’re not by some mysterious process non dom.) If true, it seems a reasonable question: what does that say about how we value the people who ensure that our rubbish is collected regularly, that we can get a GP appointment in reasonable time, that nurses are not suffering from burnout or stress from so many of their colleagues giving up and going for jobs in supermarkets?

People who have responsibility for managing large, complex, and successful businesses can reasonably claim to be rewarded well, but do pay packages and bonuses amounting to millions sit well with the people who actually do practically productive work struggling to feed and keep warm their families?

This is not even to mention those who do no meaningful work to benefit their communities (amongst whom I could now be numbered) but still own luxurious yachts and live in mansions, possibly also enjoying acres of private land used for such activities as grouse shooting (amongst whom I am definitely not numbered).

The fundamental question is, considering we are all human beings, with many qualities if also failings, and a basic right as being a part of the national society, (pace Margaret Thatcher who understood many things but not this) how can it be considered normal, or right, that thousands. or perhaps millions, of our own people cannot support even a basically secure living situation in what is often reported as being one of the richest countries in the world?

David Buckton

Linton

Nurses have been driven to desperation

It is no surprise that nurses and other healthcare workers have been driven in desperation to industrial action.

They have seen their real-term income progressively shrink for years. The same government which has routinely ignored or undercut so-called “independent “ pay bodies for decades now use them as an excuse for inaction!

The pressures on staff have increased enormously, while government respect for them has deteriorated.

We are not a poor country – just very unequal. If the hundreds of millions (at the least) which have been thrown away on useless PPE, track and trace systems which didn’t work properly, and profits for private contractors, car parking firms and greedy PFI schemes had instead been made available to the NHS to support clinical work then we would not be in this mess.

Although I suppose the offshore accounts of government’s donors and cronies and consequent profits for bankers might have taken a hit. Though I doubt many of them however are queuing up for food banks after 12-hour shifts, or unable to heat their homes, clothe their kids or fill up their cars to get to work.

Mike Margetts

Kilsby