Alan Johnson is a writer and former Education, Health and Home Secretary for the Labour party, and his latest book ‘Harold Wilson – Twentieth Century Man’ is published by Swift Press
In a typical piece of straight talking this week, Wes Streeting expressed his exasperation with the doctor’s union, the BMA.
When I was Health Secretary I felt equally frustrated by their antics. In 2008 with NHS waiting times slashed from an average of two years under the Tories to eight weeks and public satisfaction with hospital care at record levels, the last Labour government set out to improve access to GP surgeries.
Some enlightened practices already opened on Saturday mornings for the convenience of those many patients who worked on weekdays and parents who didn’t want their child to be taking time off school for a GP consultation. We wanted to expand the number of surgeries open on Saturdays only to run into a campaign of opposition by the BMA.
Wes is also trying to improve the patient experience, this time by enabling the public to book an appointment online – hardly a revolutionary proposal in 2025. But it has run into the same fierce institutional resistance to change.
Meanwhile this Bloody Minded Association has announced a vicious series of resident doctor strikes in the run up to Christmas. Previously known as junior doctors, these medics have been called out for five days from 17th to 22nd of December.
When I was a trade union leader the cardinal rule was never lead your members into a dispute they can’t win. The majority of the public have huge respect for the medical profession but not their professional body. Opinion polls tell us the public is against this strike, as well they might be. Having received a huge pay hike last year and with an above inflation offer on the table, the union is disrupting patient services at a critical time in the health service calendar in pursuit of a ludicrous 26% pay claim.
Other health unions have accepted the recommendations of the independent pay review body, recommendations honoured in full by the government. There are non- pay issues that the government has offered to discuss, such as improving working conditions and expanding training but to no avail. If this pay claim were to be conceded it would seriously jeopardise the health service recovery already well underway. The BMA, which vehemently opposed the creation of the NHS in the 20th century, is hindering its progress in the 21st.
‘Why punish the children?’
Restricting benefit payments to two children per family was always abhorrent. What kind of politician advocates picking on small kids to repair the economic damage their policies have caused?
Those supporting the two-child limit would argue that it was aimed at the parents. They portray them as work-shy scrounges living off the state. Yet the majority of those affected have at least one parent in work. Of the rest, the largest proportion are single-parents who once lived in two-parent households.
Circumstances change, relationships break down, divorce happens, one parent (usually the father) abandons the family, or dies, or goes to jail. Why punish the children?
As a single measure, lifting the two-child cap from next April was important. But as part of the comprehensive child poverty strategy announced this week it will have a transformative effect on thousands of young lives.’
‘Net-migration is lower than under Tories’
‘The latest net-migration figure is 204,000, a fall of 75% since its peak two years ago. It’s now close to what it was in the final year of the last Labour government. The Tories came in claiming that they’d reduce net-migration to the tens of thousands. Instead it rose to almost a million. Labour is back in power and the figure is dramatically lower than it’s been since 2010. Just saying.’
‘Your Party should be worried’
‘If Your Party is your party, you should be worried. Its chaotic inaugural conference decided that, rather than be led by a single figure, leadership would rest with a ‘panel’ of members.
GK Chesterton once wrote; ‘I’ve searched all the parks in all the cities; and found no statues of committees.’
Mind you, given a choice between Corbyn and Sultana, I think I’d choose a panel.