Labour’s Reaction To The Doctors' Strikes Proves It Has Officially Dropped The 'Nice Guy' Act

People hold placards as they stand on a picket line outside St Thomas' Hospital on July 25, 2025 in London, England.Resident doctors started their five-day strike on Friday – and it’s clear from the government’s reaction that their sympathies for the medics are running thin.The British Medical Association (BMA) is calling for a full restoration of pay for resident doctors, formally known as junior doctors.They argue that their pay is still down by a fifth compared to 2008, despite a 5.4% average pay rise this year and a 22% bump over the previous two years.This is the 12th time senior doctors have had to step in to cover for the resident doctors and keep essential services operating amid this long-running dispute.But BMA resident doctor co-leaders, Dr Melissa Ryan and Dr Ross Nieuwoudt, said: “Resident doctors are not worth less than they were 17 years ago.“Restoring pay remains the simplest and most effective route toward improving our working lives.”Taking aim at the health secretary, they said: ”[Wes] Streeting had every opportunity to prevent this strike going ahead, but he chose not to take it.”Just last year, Streeting made it clear he was focused on working with the union to resolve the deadlock over pay.He said he called the striking doctors on “day one” of his new job last summer after Labour won the general election on a landslide and promised that resolving their pay dispute was a “priority” for him.Keir Starmer, center, accompanied by Health Secretary Wes StreetingThen in September, he was jubilant that he was able to bring the strikes to an end.Although he did not meet their request to increase their pay by 35%, he ended up hiking it by 22% over two years.He also blamed the Tories for not compromising with the protesting medics, noting: “We paid a heavy price for the previous government’s failure: £1.7 billion wasted on the cost of strikes since April last year – and over 1.5 million appointments cancelled.” He added: “This is what you get with a Labour MP in a Labour government. Making a real difference.”Less than a year later, Streeting has wasted no time in briefing against BMA, the union who called the strikes.When they were first announced, he said they were “completely unreasonable”.“No trade union in British history has seen its members receive a 28.9% pay rise only to immediately respond with strikes, and the majority of BMA resident doctors didn’t vote to strike,” he said, while insisting: “You will not find another health and social care secretary as sympathetic to resident doctors as me.”Then this week, as the strikes loomed, he told the Daily Mail that BMA officials are either “weak”, or “misleading”, accusing them of trying to hold the country “to ransom”.He wrote in the Guardian that their behaviour “undermines the entire trade union movement” and urged NHS leaders to make sure it is “important these strikes are not pain free for resident doctors or the BMA”.'We won't let the BMA hold this country to ransom'Health Secretary Wes Streeting speaks as resident doctors in England begin a five-day strike.He describes the action by the BMA as 'reckless and unnecessary' https://t.co/qx2G65zGyb📺 Sky 501, Virgin 602 pic.twitter.com/LyqjvJDcxn— Sky News (@SkyNews) July 25, 2025Prime minister Keir Starmer echoed his message, writing in The Times that the BMA’s action will “play into the hands of those who do not want our NHS to succeed in its current form”.Streeting also wrote to every resident doctor in the NHS urging them to ignore the BMA on Thursday and still attend work on Friday.He said: “I deeply regret the position we now find ourselves in. The public, and I am sure many of you, do not understand the rush to strike action.“I would like to thank all those that will be turning up to work and supporting their colleagues in providing care for patients despite the challenging circumstances. I urge you to join them.”And, when the BMA said fully qualified doctors earn £18.62 an hour in their first year, while physical assistants – who do not go to medical school – earn up to £24 per hour, the Department of Health called their claims “disingenuous”.“The average annual earnings per first year resident doctor last year was £43,275,” a spokesperson said. “That is significantly more, in a resident doctor’s first year, than the average full-time worker in this country earns.”So, why are Labour taking such a firm line this time?Firstly, the government has been warning that it simply does not have enough money in its coffers for some time now.But left-wing criticism towards the government has been growing for months – Starmer even cast out a handful of MPs who rebelled against his welfare cuts.It’s also no secret that the government is already struggling on several fronts on the domestic stage, slipping in the polls while Reform UK leap ahead.Further chaos within the NHS is unlikely to help the government.Starmer also promised to bring down NHS waiting lists when he got into office, Streeting has since admitted the strikes will “hit the progress we are making in turning the NHS around”.Although tensions are evidently rising, we are a long way off from the “summer of discontent” where public sector workers walked out in a dispute with the last Tory government who refused to negotiate with them at all.But striking doctors could be the first domino in a long line of public workers who are still unhappy.Their industrial action already coincided with the striking bin workers who have set up a “megapicket” in Birmingham today.So Labour will be looking to take the wind out of their sails, and quickly, before too much damage to the NHS – and their political reputation.Related...Labour Promised To End Public Sector Strikes. So Why Are They Happening Again?BBC Expert Warns Trump's Air Strikes May Have 'Accelerated' Iran's Nuclear Weapons Programme9 Questions Remaining Over Iran-Israel Conflict After Trump's Strikes

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