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This evening’s Standard carries the headline: ‘Fat Cat Doctors To Hold Strike’. This is a powerful political statement, more powerful than anything that has issued from Andrew Lansley’s mouth this afternoon. Andy Burnham, Labour’s shadow health secretary, appreciates the importance of this. He defended the BMA’s plan but urged the doctors ‘to pull back from any form of action that damages patient care, including disruption to non-urgent care.’ There could be nothing more damaging than a story that contrasts greed with neglect.
As ever, a chorus of rage suffocates the arguments. But, the BMA, and the unions in general, could make their case more clearly. Could you say for certain why the doctors are striking? Fairness seems to be the call, but it is ill-defined. As Isabel Hardman notes, ‘[their] most persuasive argument they can make is disparity between their 14.5 per cent contributions and the 7.35 per cent paid by civil servants on equivalent salaries.’
The BMA should be emphasising that difference. But there are other options. When I was idling away time in the jurors’ pen the other week, I picked up a union leaflet. To my surprise, it devoted two paragraphs to the decline of private sector pensions, and made common cause with those workers in a crusade for pension reform and protection. That is an intelligent union stance that could be adopted more often. Indeed, it is the government who has openly sought alliance with private sector workers. Lansley said this afternoon:
‘Yes, there is an increase in contributions but it is still an excellent scheme. If a doctor works through their working life and arrives at a pension worth £68,000 a year that’s a pension pot. If you’re in the private sector you have to go out and buy that, it would cost you nearly £1.5m.’
So long as unions limit themselves to being sectional interests, then one would expect the government to triumph in the battle of wider perceptions. Headlines like those in tonight’s Standard suggest that the government is winning.
Because you read about andy burnham
Also by David Blackburn
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