DAILY MAIL COMMENT: Now strikes may be a matter of life or death
For patients, the message could not be more stark – or more chilling. If you are frail and elderly, don’t fall over at home on Wednesday. And if you are heavily pregnant, try not to go into labour.
The reason? Ambulance workers will be on strike, meaning there’s no guarantee a paramedic will come to your aid.
The ambulance drivers’ unions have so far agreed only patients with immediately life-threatening conditions will receive help. But if someone can’t get to hospital when they are in dire need, their situation might quickly become a matter of life or death.
Unison has even admitted that patients will suffer as ambulance crews down tools to force a double-digit pay rise. This, then, is less a wage claim than a ransom demand – with the sick and injured as hostages.
Unison has even admitted that patients will suffer as ambulance crews down tools to force a double-digit pay rise
Yes, 999 staff do an important job in often challenging circumstances. But they could learn lessons in professionalism and dedication from the Armed Forces, who are covering for striking ambulance drivers.
The unions cynically say the soldiers are not trained to do the job. Yet the military are trying to save lives placed at risk because those who are trained are abandoning their patients and their responsibilities.
With nurses, postmen, rail workers, border guards and others walking out in pursuit of inflation-busting pay demands, Britain has not seen such scenes since 1978-79’s Winter of Discontent.
But ministers must not dance to the union barons’ tune. To capitulate even while public services face unprecedented disruption would be catastrophic for the economy.
The Tories must scream from the rooftops that if they paid every union what they want, it would cost an eye-watering £28billion. This is totally unaffordable.
Moreover, allowing record inflation to become embedded would be disastrous – making everyone poorer.
Even at this 11th hour, we would urge all the unions to call off these ill-advised, unnecessary and deeply damaging strikes.
Unacceptable ‘norm’
For millions of voters, a desirable objective of Brexit was to reduce sky-high immigration. In fact, the opposite has happened. In the past year, a staggering 1.1million foreign nationals came to live here.
Now a report predicts such an influx, to fill skills and labour shortages amid an ageing population, will become the ‘norm’. But that would put unsustainable pressure on wages, housing, schools and healthcare.
When millions of British people are not in employment, arguing we need more migrants is economically illiterate. What we desperately need is businesses investing more in training the domestic workforce.
Waving in vast numbers would not only betray the overwhelming majority of Leave voters. It would render the entire concept of taking back control a sham.
Left high and dry
We might have endured torrential downpours throughout the autumn and large swathes of the country remain under blankets of snow.
But that hasn’t stopped one water company warning us about the need to ration supplies next summer, including the prospect of interrupted supplies to homes.
Thames Water blames the possibility of hotter weather. The truth, however, is the profligate firm wastes 600million litres of water every day because of leaky pipes – enough to satisfy the needs of a small city.
It’s hard to escape the conclusion that the whole water industry is an absolute shower.
- We don’t expect to hear what Rishi Sunak thinks about the formation of Argentina’s midfield. So why does Gary Neville feel he has the right to force his manifestly biased Left-wing political views on a World Cup audience?
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