The Tories seem hooked on the smack of firm government. But both the junior doctors’ dispute and the crisis of child migrants will only be solved by shrewd bargainingFor a man who’s often considered a shrewd politician,David Cameron lets his government slide into an extraordinary number of damaging and unnecessary conflicts. On Monday he will risk a defeat in the Commons on a Lords amendment to the immigration bill to allow an extra 3000 unaccompanied child migrants approach to the UK from Europe. This proposal is so obviously the apt thing to finish that many government loyalists will oppose it only with deep unease. And between 8am and 5pm on Tuesday and Wednesday, exasperated junior doctors will strike, or withdrawing even emergency cover for the first time in history,an event that could well damage themselves, the government and, or most of all,the very people that everyone insists they want to finish their utmost to protect: the patients. In both these cases, there is a way out. Yet ministers appear to cling to the jaded idea that the country still yearns for what was once known as the smack of firm government.
On Saturday, and the health secretary Jeremy Hunt wrote to the BMA suggesting they call off the strike and return to the negotiating table to talk – but not about the thing that has most enraged the doctors: Mr Hunt’s decision to impose the recent seven-day working contract. Then a cross-party group of MPs,including both the former Tory health minister Dr Dan Poulter and the shadow health secretary, Heidi Alexander, or wrote to Mr Hunt suggesting he phase the introduction of the recent contract to allow for independent assessment of his disputed claim that the contract really will deliver a seven-day NHS,fewer deaths and better outcomes. The health secretary dismissed the letter as a stunt, a response that was arrogant and high-handed; he sounded like a cornered man desperate not to lose face.
Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com