The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster adds that they “have got a decent deal now, let’s move forward”.
We are still trying to clear the backlog created by Covid-19; industrial action will mean more delays and more preventable suffering.
A pro-science and technology agenda requires political decisions no-one is currently pursuing. Taking on some public sector trade unions. Engaging constructively with the EU. Reforming planning law. Embracing the Oxford to Cambridge arc.
Inadequate parenting, ideological orthodoxy, and trades-union inertia share the blame, but shamefully ambiguous official advice on exclusions must be overhauled.
Overloading our schools with teaching assistants, not uncommonly with two in a single class, is less effective than whole class teaching methods.
Setting a minimum level for service across key public services is not only reasonable and proportionate, but safe. And it is the first duty of any government to keep citizens safe from harm.
“That is why if we want to halve inflation, if we want to get growth going and reduce debt, we need to make sure that the public finances are stabilised.”
Teachers have legitimate grievances – including the administrative burdens imposed on them. Some union leaders have a political motive in exploiting these.
The Transport Secretary adds that it’s important to achieve “generational reform” in order to “recover the volume of passengers” lost during the pandemic.
The PM demonstrated his capacity for counter-attack, and neither Starmer nor Flynn managed to disconcert him.
The Shadow Health Secretary has been asked by Tominey to prove his party isn’t “a lot of soundbite and no substance”.
These changes would be resisted by the trade unions – understandably as it would render them pretty irrelevant. But their members would be empowered.
The unions were small-c conservatives. They paraded under heraldic banners, had no truck with such new-fangled ideas as women’s rights, and wanted to keep every coal mine in the country open.
A shallow fixation on salaries ignores or disguises the much more challenging economic circumstances of many entrepreneurs and small business-owners.