Nick Watts, Sharon Mills and John Robinson on striking healthcare workers and the damage done to the NHS by Conservative neglect
Katy Balls writes that Rishi Sunak has taken the view that there is “ample Tory support” for toughing it out against striking workers (The Thatcherites hounding Sunak over strikes forget one thing: she picked her battles, 9 January). But it should be remembered that this support exists among Conservatives who spent much of 2022 preoccupied with whether Boris Johnson had been the country’s most successful leader – or, if not Johnson, which other Tory politician should be given the job. Having had their gaze torn away from their collective navel by what is happening to health and public services, their initial response has been “oh, strikes – well, the Iron Lady knew how to deal with those”. It is true, as Balls says, that the analogy is flawed because Margaret Thatcher picked her battles.
It is also the case that the battles Thatcher fought – and usually won – were against coalminers and steelworkers in a Britain of heavy industry that has largely been transformed. Part of the process of the unionised workforce then becoming less powerful was that the economy radically changed, and the industries in which they operated became less important, and the battles that Thatcher picked contributed to this happening. With an ageing population, who is seriously suggesting that the “power” of nurses and ambulance drivers could be broken in the same way – or that a better Britain would result?
Nick Watts
Barton Seagrave, Northamptonshire
