If doctors think Brits will support their latest strike here's why they're mistaken – people are not stupid
Coming to power last year, it awarded junior doctors a 22 per cent pay rise.
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And simultaneously abolished legislation brought in by the Conservatives to make it harder for public sector unions to hold the country to ransom.
Twelve months later and the British Medical Association has come back for more.
This time it is demanding an even bigger, 29 per cent rise for junior doctors (who now like to be called "resident doctors" to disguise the fact they are still in training).
The union has announced a five-day strike if it doesn't get what it wants.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting seems to be taken aback, along with the rest of the Government, but he shouldn't be.
It was obvious that by caving into the BMA last year, he would embolden it.
Under the new rules, the BMA does not need a majority of its members to vote in favour of strike action, and neither does it have to worry about the now-repealed law brought in by the Conservatives which guaranteed minimum service levels on strike days.
Something, however, has changed since last year to thwart the BMA's ambitions.
It has suffered a collapse in public support.
Prior to last year's pay award, a majority of the public appeared to support junior doctors' strikes.
Junior Doctors Announce Five-Day Strike in July Amid Ongoing Pay Dispute
Now, according to a YouGov poll, only 33 per cent support strike action, and 49 per cent oppose it.
The BMA seems to think that doctors hold such an esteemed position in the minds of the UK public that it can get away with anything.
Perhaps it remembers all the clapping on the doorsteps during the Covid pandemic and thinks that people will forever after react in the same way, even when they are having appointments and operations cancelled due to a five-day strike.
But it is sadly mistaken. We all, rightly, applaud doctors for what they do, especially when they go out of their way to help us.
But there are limits. Last year's pay rise for junior doctors was way above that offered to any other group of workers.
So, too, is the 5.4 per cent rise which junior doctors have been awarded this year.
To come back and ask for an even bigger rise, and expect the public to nod in support, shows a detachment from reality.
People are not stupid.
They can see the Government is deep in debt, and that Britain is heading for fiscal disaster if the Government continues to spend more than it earns in revenue.
They can see, too, that the BMA's claim junior doctors need a 29 per cent rise to restore their earnings to 2008 levels is spurious to say the least.
It is based on calculations using the Retail Prices Index, a long-discredited measure of inflation which tends to run well ahead of the official index now used for almost everything, the Consumer Prices Index.
There are plenty of workers whose pay has fallen back in real terms over the past decade and a half, and for good reason.
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Britain has been struggling to achieve any meaningful economic growth.
Productivity is static, and in the public services has fallen lower than it was in 1997 when Tony Blair came to power.
The Government had an opportunity to link last year's pay award to improved working practices, with the aim of improving lamentable NHS productivity, but chose not to do so.
The public can also see doctors have a generous pension scheme, with taxpayers contributing an extra 23.7 per cent of doctors' pay in the form of pension contributions.
When doctors retire, they will enjoy guaranteed, index-linked payouts.
Few, if any, private sector workers enjoy pensions which are anything like as generous.
Index-linked payouts
Streeting has at least acknowledged the generosity of doctors' pensions, suggesting he might be prepared to offer pay rises in return for lower pension entitlements.
As for the claim junior doctors were being paid less per hour than baristas in high street coffee shops, even the BMA has given up on that propaganda.
Actually, with overtime payments, some of the junior doctors going on strike could be earning in excess of £100,000 a year.
It is important to remember, however, that not all junior, or 'resident', doctors support these strikes.
Only 55 per cent of BMA members actually voted in the ballot.
Moreover, not all junior doctors are members of the BMA.
Of the 77,000 working in the NHS the BMA claims 48,000.
Many doctors have been horrified by the prospect of more strikes, with Lord Darzi and Lord Winston both condemning them in recent days.
It even led to Lord Winston's resignation from the BMA.
Doctors are being badly served by the BMA, which is really just a trade union like any other.
Many may at present be pleased with last year's pay award, but the BMA is taking them down a blind alley of militant unionism which is unlikely to end well.
What has always marked out the medical profession is very high levels of public support.
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