The Guardian view on NHS strikes: a last resort and a cry of despair

‘There is less capacity to make do with less in the NHS because its staff have endured falling living standards for years.’ Photograph: Victoria Jones/PA

Industrial action can have many causes, but there are two responses available to governments – negotiation or confrontation. Which path ministers take depends on a calculation about public opinion. Sympathy with the strikers will encourage compromise; suspicion that their demands are excessive permits intransigence.

Frontline health workers are generally held in high esteem, and the Covid pandemic reinforced national affection for the NHS. That sentiment will extend to support for striking nurses in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, but compassion will compete with anxiety about patient care. Mindful of that balance, the government has adopted a stance of calibrated intransigence, signalling readiness to talk, but not about the main issue – pay.