Junior doctors have always been there for the public – now we have to be there for them

Health secretary Steve Barclay insists junior doctors are being “unreasonable” in striking for a 35 per cent pay rise. In fact, Rishi Sunak’s government tells any group of workers who demand a living wage that there’s “no money” to pay them.

Yet the UK government has wastefully squandered or dubiously allocated public money since they came to power: from £95,834 spent on stocking the Westminster wine cellar, £3,393 on paintings, and £3,600 on chauffeur services.

In addition, the Tories have already given the government of Rwanda £140m to finance Suella Braverman’s refugee “obsession” – that works out at £700,000 per inmate. And, last month, Rishi Sunak agreed to pay the French state £500m over the next three years as part of its merciless campaign against asylum seekers.

It appears Rishi Sunak’s government has unlimited money when it comes to its own policies and the comfort of its own MPs.

Only when it comes to paying junior doctors, nurses, ambulance crews, and teachers – those people who look after the public – does the government suddenly find it has “no money”.

I support the junior doctors. They have always been there for us – so now we have to be there for them. We have to provide solidarity to ensure their strike wins against Sunak’s government of grifters.

Sasha Simic

London

Steve Barclay sits in his bunker, unwilling to even come to the table to begin negotiations with the junior doctors, even if his cynical stubbornness is likely to cost lives. He falls back on the tired mantra that their claim is unaffordable, when anyone with a brain knows that 35 per cent is a starting point for negotiations.

If Barclay is cynically hoping that any deaths will be put at the door of the doctors and make them unpopular, then he is completely wrong. The austerity agendas of successive Conservative governments of the past 12 years are squarely and directly responsible for the current parlous state of the NHS.

“Defund”, “demoralise”, and “privatise”: that is the Conservative agenda for the NHS. It is NOT safe in their hands.

Once privatised, just watch ex-Tory ministers jostling as they rush to take up lots of lucrative jobs on the boards of healthcare companies.

Arthur Streatfield

Bath

I’m pretty sure there are many of us who’d fervently love to see our politicians show a bit of humility, and basic common decency and just occasionally “fess up” and acknowledge they are (like normal people) fallible. Unless dragged kicking and screaming before an investigatory committee or Laura Kuenssberg they’ll look us in the eye and swear their colossal error was either someone else’s fault or it wasn’t actually a problem.

Had Boris Johnson just held his hands up and publicly accepted he’d made a big mistake allowing drinks events at No 10 in lockdown and then said he was sorry, do you think he’d be on the ropes now?

Would hapless Liz Truss still be such a political leper if she’d simply apologised and accepted her woefully inept “Trussonomics” had crashed our economy, instead of her continued bumptious denial of reality?

Today, it’s painfully obvious that Sir Kier Starmer’s refusal to accede to calls for an apology and abandonment of Labour’s personal attack on Rishi Sunak is leading us all to believe he’s in danger of compromising the one ace he still had up his sleeve... his common decency.

He knows it’s wrong, but it looks like someone amongst his advisers has stopped him simply apologising and pulling the campaign.

If he keeps this up it’s going to make it a two-horse race and harder to decide which “nasty party” I’m going to vote for.

Steve Mackinder

Denver

Usually, I’m no fan of Canada’s PM Justin Trudeau, however, with his banning of assault-type military weapons in Canada I simply must say: "Bravo Trudeau!"

I have long enjoyed recreational shooting but even I can see that America’s National Rifle Association is challenging even the most modest, sensible attempts at controlling America’s gun madness. And whilst not for a moment making light of those suffering mental health problems, it is absolute lunacy to continue to allow the wrong sort of guns to be sold in America.

Sadly, our modern-day world has far too many troubled (and/or intent on evil) people. So why give such people such easy access to any type of gun in the first place? Let alone access to military-type assault weapons (and, so easily concealed handguns) to continue to slaughter innocent American citizens in such great numbers?

This is not what your founding fathers intended!

This could be President Biden’s finest hour or else America’s flags may well be, perpetually, flying at half-mast.

Howard Hutchins

Address Supplied

There is little doubt that Johnson’s tenure in Downing Street, particularly his pursuit of a hard Brexit and the introduction of a botched protocol in Northern Ireland, poisoned relations between London and the then-incoming Biden administration in Washington. The antics of a “mini me” Trump seen to be cynically playing the “orange card” for his ERG/DUP audience went down badly with many US Democrats and their strong roots in blue-collar Irish American constituencies and remains a factor in why a US – UK trade deal has been so long delayed.

Fortunately, neither the severance of the United Kingdom from the EU, against the wishes of the majority in Northern Ireland, or the continuing boycott of a Stormont Executive by the Democratic Unionist Party, nor even the deplorable violence of the Real IRA, has yet to derail the Good Friday Agreement.

Indeed, the establishment of the Windsor Framework suggests that a more constructive approach to both Washington and Brussels is now being pursued that will help maintain both the integrity of the Good Friday Agreement, restore a power-sharing executive in Stormont and guarantee prosperity and peace for all the people of Ireland.

Paul Dolan

Cheshire