It’s time for the Government to call the bluff of spoiled public school lefties leading dangerous doctors’ strikes
THE junior doctors have been on strike in pursuit of their unions’ perfectly reasonable request for a 35 per cent pay rise.
That’s right.
One of the highest paid professions in the country.
And they are demanding a pay rise somewhere in the region of seven times more than the nurses settled for.
I’ll bet there will be a few frosty exchanges on the wards.
You might have seen the junior docs on the picket lines, with their various Socialist Workers Party placards. Demanding “Kick The Tories Out”.
Be in no doubt, this strike is not simply aimed at getting more money.
Its real aim is to sink the Conservatives by causing even more chaos in our benighted National Health Service.
One bloke you won’t have seen on the picket lines is Dr Robert Laurenson.
Dr Robert is 28 years old.
He’s the leader of the Junior Doctor’s branch of the British Medical Association.
He’s the man behind the ludicrous 35 per cent pay demand.
So why wasn’t he out, screaming abuse against the Tory scum in his exciting pink spectacles?
Because he’s decided to take a holiday instead.
He’s sauntered off to a mate’s wedding.
Leaving the people he demanded must strike out in the cold.
They will lose a lot of pay for not being at work.
Dr Robert won’t, because he took annual leave.
So he’ll be picking up his paycheck as usual, while toasting the happy couple.
It’s a magnificent case of hypocrisy.
Almost — but not quite — beyond belief.
But then Dr Robert doesn’t really fit the stereotype of a strike leader.
He fits, very neatly, into another very recognisable stereotype.
That of the spoiled public school leftie activist.
Yup, my favourite kind of person.
Dr Robert attended one of the poshest boarding schools in the country.
And he sits on the board of his family’s multi-million pound investment firm.
So I suppose he doesn’t take the issue of losing money while striking very seriously.
The pay claim is, of course, an absurdity.
Especially at a time when the Government is doing its level best to control inflation.
As the Health Secretary Steve Barclay put it: “A militant group seems to have taken over the junior doctors committee.”
Barclay was commenting on the young doctors’ refusal to negotiate and their juvenile publicity campaigns.
But Barclay knows that Dr Robert’s campaign is less about money and rather more about causing as much trouble and disruption as is humanly possible, to hurt the Government.
That’s the not-so-secret agenda.
Much as it is with the teachers.
Their main union has just elected as its leader a genuine half-wit, a man called Daniel Kebede.
Here’s what he has said about the strikes called by his members.
It is about “taking back control of an education system from a brutally racist state . . . It is much more than about the issue of pay, it is about reorganising society, where we are free from racism and free from oppression”.
That was from a speech he made to . . . the Socialist Workers Party, an organisation which wishes to violently overthrow the state.
It is time for the Government to call the bluff of these tinpot, grasping, Marxist, ideologues.
Refuse to negotiate until the demands approach something sensible, no matter how long it takes.
Second coming
RESEARCHERS have just uncovered a new chapter of the Bible.
It had been hidden for thousands of years.
What if it’s actually the FIRST chapter of the Bible?
And begins with the words: “All of the characters and events depicted in this book are entirely fictional and intended to bear no resemblance to any actual people, living or dead”?
Eggs a shell shock
POPPED into Sainsbury’s to buy a few Creme Eggs, as you do.
It was Tuesday night, the day after Easter Monday.
They didn’t have any.
All gone.
The stands from which they beckoned me over, since about Boxing Day, vanished.
All existence of these delicious confections expunged.
I got the notion that if I had asked one of the staff where their Creme Eggs were, they’d have replied: “Creme Eggs, Sir? Eggs with cream in them? I don’t know what you’re talking about. Not in this shop.
“Are you feeling unwell, Sir? Can I get you any medical assistance?”
Another nine months, then, before we’re allowed to eat them again.
I can’t believe Jesus would have been happy with this state of affairs.
Keir’s ads an error
SIR Keir Starmer is doubling down on his below-the-belt attacks on the Prime Minister.
This, I think, is a mistake.
The Labour leader has shifted his position on so many issues he’s a sitting duck for a really nasty counter-attack.
I mean, we still don’t know if Sir Keir is absolutely clear about what is meant by the word “woman”.
And how many votes will Labour lose in those red wall seats if the Tories show that photo of Starmer down on one knee?
All of them, you would suspect.
You reap what you sow, Sir Keir.
Game show dunces
I WAS watching a TV quiz show – Pointless, as it happens – with the missus.
And the thought occurred to us: why do people go on quiz shows when they seem to know absolutely f*** all about anything?
Is it to give friends and family the chance to laugh at how thick they are?
Last episode in the Kingdom
TOMORROW night – mobile phones set to silent, bottle of wine on ice and maybe a shot glass of mead.
It’s the premiere of the Seven Kings Must Die film on Netflix, a conclusion to the series The Last Kingdom.
It’s been so long since I enjoyed a television series, you see – and I would still watch this even if the house was burning down around me.
The key to its success? Largely a very good cast who clearly hugely enjoyed themselves making the five series.
If Uhtred lives – and I suspect he does, although the brilliant star Alexander Dreymon wouldn’t tell me for certain – they should do a follow-up.
Uhtred will be about 70 and living in a retirement home where he has to beat a bunch of Danes at cribbage.
Remember, destiny is all.
Truth of vile thugs
THE extremist Islamist thugs who run the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas have given their verdict on the murder of a British-Israeli woman and two of her children.
Lucy Dee and her daughters Maia and Rina were in a car travelling through the West Bank when the terrorist struck.
This big brave man shot the girls in the back as they tried to run away.
Lucy was also shot and died later in hospital.
According to Hamas, this was all perfectly justifiable and only to be expected.
What an utterly vile organisation.
The only good thing is that perhaps it may open the eyes of a few Brits who, stupidly, advance the cause of Hamas.
They’re the people you’re supporting, you mugs.
That’s what they do.
Doolally Lama
SLIGHTLY odd sort of chap, the Dalai Lama, don’t you reckon?
If the Pope had asked a small child to suck his tongue you’d probably be looking at his police mug-shot right now.
And the disestablishment of the Roman Catholic Church.
Makes you wonder if the Chinese were right about the old codger all along, frankly.
Ban’s right
RESPECT to the lovely actress Sophie Winkleman.
She’s taken her kids out of a posh school.
Because each pupil was given an iPad.
From the age of SIX.
She rightly objected to this. “The internet is a toxic wilderness we’re letting children stumble through without protection,” she said.
Quite so.
The less time kids are allowed on their fatuous devices, the better.
I know we can’t insulate them from the moronic cybersphere for ever.
But the later they get swept up in it, the better.