SO, the Tories have decided that the people who got the country through the Covid-19 crisis (NHS staff) are to get a 1% pay rise. Which is in actuality a pay cut. What the Tories are proposing is giving frontline nurses £3.50 extra a week.
The laughably incompetent Tory ghouls spent the whole of the pandemic endlessly praising the NHS. This was a hollow con.
The Tories have deployed the hapless minister Nadine Dorries to go out and defend this indefensible move. Dorries said the pay cut was the most the government could “afford”. Dorries, it should be remembered, promoted Danny Tommo (a supporter of Tommy Robinson) on Twitter. Dorries incurred no consequences for spreading fascist propaganda. In fact, it was mostly ignored by the Tory tribalists in the media.
READ MORE: Matt Hancock defends one per cent pay rise for nurses despite threat of strikes
Tory propaganda says that a pay rise is “unaffordable”. Just on Test & Trace alone the covetous Tories blew £12 billion. Public money into the pockets of venal lazy fat cat Tory donors. Dorries basically said that NHS staff should be grateful they had a job at all.
The Boris Johnson clown show has been a disaster. 130,000 dead due to their criminally negligent “herd immunity” strategy.
A decade of ruinous living standards gutting austerity has created the conditions that have led to the worst economic contraction for 300 years. Effectively a depression – a Tory depression.
Sunak’s Budget was a giveaway to the super-rich which will be paid for through the further evisceration of the living standards of working people. Sunak gave big business a boon with a £25bn super deduction. This allows investment in “plant and machinery”. It wipes out the proposed increase in corporation tax in two years. This is being paid for by stealth taxes on the lowest earners.
The only way to beat the Tories and their class war is to have rolling coordinated strike action and demonstrations. However, what Johnson knows is that the public are insouciant, obsessed with “celebrity” culture, and too dim to pay attention or grasp the severity of their situation.
Scotland can’t escape because the Tories will refuse permission for an independence referendum and the current SNP leadership have no Plan B.
Alan Hinnrichs
Dundee
THE people of Britain demand NHS heroes get the substantial pay rise they so richly deserve.
Boris Johnson repeatedly stood outside 10 Downing Street and clapped for the NHS. Skilled NHS workers had protected and nursed him through his severe bout of Covid. He owed his life to the NHS nursing staff.
Now all the talk about NHS heroes has been shown to be just a meaningless smokescreen. The government has proposed a mere 1% increase in NHS salaries. Already facing huge stress and personal danger, they are now kicked in teeth!
The government maintain they cannot afford any more. Yet they were willing to squander millions of taxpayers’ money on PPE contracts for their cronies, often those who had little or no experience in such areas, resulting too often in PPE that was useless. Closer to home, Boris Johnson has spent £200,000 on redecorating 10 Downing Street.
READ MORE: Call for Downing Street transparency with refurbishment to cost 'over £200,000'
All over Britain people owe their lives, and those of their loved ones, to the hard-working NHS staff who repeatedly risk their own lives in the battle with coronavirus.
They showed their gratitude by clapping on the doorstep. Unlike Boris Johnson, they meant it. This is a government public relations disaster. People are appalled by the mean ingratitude of this government!
We owe our NHS heroes a huge debt of gratitude for all their sacrifices. Let’s show it with a substantial pay rise.
Andrew Milroy
Trowbridge
INSULTING, inept, inappropriate, inadequate, incompetent, insane. You know what I’m talking about. Of course you do. 1% pay rise for England’s nursing staff! A miserable 1%. What planet is the Westminster government on?
Surely this a premature April Fool’s story that has leaked a few weeks early? Or a case of fake news? Surely it must be! Or for those, like myself, with “one foot in the grave”, we just can’t believe it! I’m sure to wake up soon and realise it’s just a dream!
Robin MacLean
Fort Augustus
SO the Westminster government is basking in the glory of the heroic efforts of the NHS regarding Covid mass vaccination – and the NHS has indeed done well – but consider the government’s handling of Covid in general. “World-beating Track & Trace app”, contracts to buddies and donors, 1% pay offer to nurses etc.
If a malevolent individual were to push you into a deep fast-flowing river and a friend pulls you out just before you drown, you would naturally be grateful to that friend.
Your relief, however, should not cause you to forget who pushed you in in the first place!
Alex Leggatt
Edinburgh
THE deceitful nature of the Tory government is evidenced by the decision to award a below-inflation pay rise to the deserving frontline NHS staff.
It is not just the size of the award that is distressing, but the fact that it was not announced until the day after the Budget, clearly with the intention of covering it up among the general post-Budget noise.
The staff who worked their socks off in double shifts and put themselves in danger with inadequate or poor-quality personal protective equipment deserve much better than this.
Pete Rowberry
Duns
NEVER in the field of public health has so little been offered to so many for so much.
Kenneth Burnett
Aberdeen
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