DAILY MAIL COMMENT: Doctors' walkouts will only cause more pain
Everyone should applaud the decision of nurses yesterday to put public safety before union militancy. In a cheering victory for the and its patients, rank and file members of the Royal College of Nursing defied their leadership and refused to vote for further strikes. Nearly two-thirds either voted against striking, or didn't vote at all. Does this mean they are blissfully happy with their pay and conditions? No, but it's a recognition that in these straitened times the offer they received 5 per cent plus a lump sum of at least 1,655 is fair. So virtually all nursing staff have now ended their industrial action, lifting a huge burden from hospital managers as they struggle to reduce record waiting lists. Sadly, their feeling of relief didn't last out the day. While nurses were exercising compassion and common sense, doctors belonging to the British Medical Association were doing the opposite. Junior doctors were already due to embark on a reckless five-day strike next month in pursuit of a stratospheric 35 per cent pay claim, putting patients at risk and leading to thousands of postponed or cancelled operations. Now consultants are set to strike for two days immediately after their junior colleagues, meaning hospitals will be in chaos for a week or more. As ever, it is the vulnerable who will suffer most. The BMA loftily claims its members have 'no choice' but to walk out. This is, of course, rubbish. They could choose to go to work and continue negotiating, rather than abandoning their posts. When rail workers or public servants strike, the public are inconvenienced. When doctors walk off the job, people are likely to die. Instead of holding the sick to ransom, the BMA should end the posturing, follow the example of their RCN colleagues and call off these damaging strikes. Nurse always knows best. Just when we hoped the end could be near for the eco-zealots of Just Stop Oil, Climate Change Committee chairman Lord Deben puts wind in their flagging sails. Even the original financial backer of Extinction Rebellion (of which JSO is an offshoot) now says their childish demonstrations are holding back the environmentalist cause. Yet Deben, formerly John Selwyn Gummer and known primarily as a lacklustre minister in John Major's lacklustre administration, says the Government should learn from JSO's extremist antics. If this is the best advice he and the Climate Change Committee can offer, is there any point listening to anything they say? Will Sir Bernard Jenkin ever come clean over the party (or parties) he and his wife allegedly attended in breach of lockdown? Pressure grew on him yesterday after Tory MP Virginia Crosbie apologised for attending a joint birthday gathering for her and Lady Jenkin in December 2020. Sir Bernard is also said to have attended. The longer he remains silent, the guiltier he looks. He was keen enough to damn Boris Johnson over Partygate breaches. To be so taciturn about his own shortcomings smacks of gross hypocrisy.