Oscar Wilde once described a cynic as someone that knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing. In which case, this current Tory administration is the most cynical of governments.

Only a cynic like Jeremy Hunt would say there is no money for pay rises when his predecessor Kwasi Kwarteng burnt a 30 billion pound hole in the public finance with his disastrous min-budget; and when billions of pounds of tax payers money have been wasted on PPE contracts awarded to Tory cronies via an illegal VIP lane (of which the lurid headlines around Michelle Mone are surely only the tip of an iceberg).

Only a cynic such as Tobias Ellwood would describe striking RMT workers as ‘Putin’s friends’ when his own party is still taking tens of thousands of pounds in donations from people – like Lubov Chernukhin, who is married to Vladimir Putin’s former deputy finance minister – that actually are friends of Putin.

Only a cynic like Steve Barclay would criticise the ambulance strike from preventing the sick from going to hospital when he is presiding over a service where even chronically ill people are waiting up to 26 hours to be admitted.

Standing Up for Our Public Services

This Tory government understand the costs attached to the public sector workers that are currently planning strike action, but know nothing about the value of the services they deliver. Yes, these strikes are about pay, because our public services are on their knees after twelve years of Tory austerity in which our front line workers – the same people we applauded on our doorsteps during lockdown – have suffered real time pay cuts of 20% and more. But actually, they are standing up for the services they provide – which have all been pared to the bone since 2012.

For example, the RCN are striking as much to ensure patient safety as about pay – over 40,000 people left the nursing register in the last year and there is a total of 47,000 unfilled posts across the NHS in England, largely because pay and conditions are so poor – meaning wards are often chronically understaffed. Ironically, minimum staffing levels will be assured when industrial action is being taken, meaning patient safety might actually be higher on strike days. And one of the fundamental reasons the CWU are striking is to ensure the quality and integrity of a service that is being undermined by (higher-paid) casual labour.

Paying the Price for Tory Failure

Schools Minister Nick Gibb, who should be worrying about record vacancies in our schools owing to difficulties in recruitment and staff leaving the profession – again largely due to low pay and poor conditions – is instead criticising striking workers for holding the country to ransom. In fact, it is this government that is holding working families to ransom.

It’s disastrous hard Brexit has fuelled food inflation. Liz Truss’s farcical administration caused interest rates to rocket.  Its failure to diversify the UK’s energy supply over the past twelve years is as much to blame for the energy crisis as Putin’s war. And tens of billions of pounds remains on the table because the Troies find it more expedient to hammer working families than to ensure its cronies and benefactors contribute their fair share to the nation’s taxation revenues. Their policies have directly led to this cost-of-living crisis and it is working people that are asked to pay the invoice for twelve years of Tory incompetence and failure.

The legitimate grievances of our public workers have not been listened to, the precarious financial positions in which their members find themselves have been ignored – but, to the Tories discomfort, they have not shut up and they have not gone away. We in the Twickenham stand by our striking workers and are proud to show our solidarity with them. We want to see our front line workers treated as a vital public service and not an extension of the gig economy. We want to see the government actively engaging with unions rather than simply stoking division with incendiary language. And we want to proper pay awards to our striking workers as a first step to ensuring that our public services get back to a sustainable footing.

#EnoughIsEnough