“We are doing this for you” – nurses begin historic strike action

Nurses began the first of two scheduled walkouts today. The Royal College of Nursing is calling for a 5% increase above the RPI rate of inflation of 14% – a 19% increase in total. This is to cover rising living costs and compensate for the 8% real-terms fall in average nurses’ pay since 2010. But, importantly, RCN members are also striking because they are trying to stop the exodus of staff leaving the NHS and to protect it from further cuts. “What we’re trying to do today is to actually save our NHS,” the RCN general secretary Pat Cullen said this morning. “We are doing this for you today. We’re going to try and address those 50,000 vacant posts in England alone and the only way that we’re going to do it is by ensuring our nurses have a decent wage and that we can retain them in the NHS.”

Meanwhile, Tory minister Maria Caulfield has been out on the morning round defending the government’s intransigence. Echoing Rishi Sunak and successive ministers in recent days, she argued that inflation-matching public sector pay awards would cost every household £1,000 each – a wild calculation that conveniently forgets that tax liability varies between households, that any pay increase would in themselves be taxable, does not discount already agreed pay rises and does not use average inflation but instead is based on the 41-year high in October. The government’s eccentric maths has put the bill at £28bn, while the RCN has said it would cost £10bn.

“We’ve got to find that money from somewhere,” Caulfield told Sky News. “The three options open to us if we were to fund a higher pay rise is either to borrow the money, tax people more or take that money from frontline services.” When considering where this money would come from, it is important to remember that these are the same Tories who wasted £9bn on unusable personal protective equipment in various dodgy deals with their mates and blew a £30bn hole in the economy just a couple of months ago in a bid to give unfunded tax cuts to the richest in society. It is also the same government that is planning to spend £7bn over the next five years to cut stamp duty and around £18bn on tax giveaways for banks. The government could ‘find the money’ if it wanted to. Ministers are more interested, however, in monstering workers using their right to withdraw their labour to secure decent pay and protect a vital public service.

On LabourList this morning, we have Paul McNamee writing following the launch of the Labour Climate and Environment Forum and its polling on climate leadership. And we also have a piece from shadow schools minister Stephen Morgan on Labour’s plans for private schools: “Labour knows that every parent wants the best for their children. We will never criticise them for the choices they make to achieve that. Not now, not ever. But we will also not apologise for wanting to deliver the best for every child in our state schools.” Read the full piece here.