When thousands of ambulance workers went on strike on 21 December 2022 to demand better pay and conditions, the then shadow health secretary, Wes Streeting, wasn’t shy in pointing out who was responsible. In their refusal to negotiate, he tweeted, Rishi Sunak and Steve Barclay had driven NHS staff to strike, leaving patients “in no doubt who is to blame for this chaos”.
Three years and one general election later, the surgical slipper is firmly on the other foot. Resident doctors – formerly known as junior doctors – have just finished a five-day strike, demanding a 29% pay rise over the next few years. Among placards on picket lines calling for “pay restoration” and an end to “cuts so deep that even a surgeon couldn’t fix it” were printed copies of Streeting’s tweet.
