The anger over the NHS pay rise shows how out of step the government is with the public

Nadine Dorries, minister of state for health, says she was “pleasantly surprised” when she discovered that NHS staff would be recommended for a 1 per cent pay rise. Ms Dorries, herself a former nurse, may mean well, but it’s fair to say that much of the nation would be shocked.

Like all the best gaffes, it was revealing, and not just because it suggests that ministers are out of touch with the lives of others and public opinion. It betrays, rather, a sense that the public sector generally is something that in a way lives off the private sector. The fact that those in other sectors of the economy, such as retail, travel and leisure, have had their pay cut, and lost their jobs, does not make any case in equity for a real-terms pay cut for nurses or anyone else who happens to work for the community as a whole.

The idea that the state cannot “afford” a bigger pay rise because it is borrowing so much is nonsense. It is plainly a matter of political choice. If a healthy economy requires NHS pay to be restrained so that tax cuts can stimulate enterprise, then by now the UK should have built one of the most dynamic economies in the world.

At the root of all this is an assumption and attitude that the health service, schools, parks, courts and every other public service are in some sense luxuries, whereas they are essential to civilised life, and things the public wants to support. Despite the admirable fundraising efforts of the late Captain Sir Tom Moore, the NHS is not a charity reliant on alms from the likes of Ms Dorries.

In all probability, the backlash from this announcement will eventually push the government into another U-turn. A sensible approach would be to offer an additional one-off bonus to the staff, recognising that the pandemic was such an unusual event, and that if the NHS family had not risen so bravely to the challenges then even more lives would’ve been lost and even more damage inflicted on the economy, including the private sector.

The nation asked them to put their lives on the line through gruelling shifts and shortages of equipment and that needs to be recognised. Improving pay for doctors, nurses, porters, technicians and support staff is an eminently achievable objective. Conservative backbenchers will be pressuring ministers and the Treasury to think again, and be more creative. Yet the Labour Party is doing little to put forward a practical alternative to the government’s proposal. Without that, the opposition’s claim that the 1 per cent rise is a “kick in the teeth” looks less sincere.

The government might even quietly like the idea of looking fiscally tough and responsible, in contrast to an opposition that has so far laid out few alternatives beyond demanding more.

Like anyone, NHS staff have the right to legal industrial action, and they have been sorely provoked, even humiliated – but such action requires careful thought. Nothing, cynically, would suit the government more than scenes of picket lines, or even the threat of it. Unison and the Royal College of Nursing can plead that no lives would be put at risk and that emergencies would always be attended to, but there is a risk that that public support could begin to erode.

As it stands, a scandalised public making its views heard is a powerful ally for NHS staff. The 1 per cent rise doesn’t have to be the final offer – and the government will rightly be under pressure to make sure it is not.