Sara Gorton thought the Covid pandemic was as bad as things could get for the NHS. But now, as nurses, ambulance staff and other health workers plan more strikes in a service already on its knees, the woman leading pay negotiations for the health unions believes she was wrong. “This is worse – because it is a situation we are in because of political choice,” she says.
Prime minister Rishi Sunak and his ministers like to portray union leaders as leftwing militants, modern-day Arthur Scargills. By doing so they believe they can turn the public against the strikers as the disputes drag on and sympathy wears thin.
