Wes Streeting has chosen to write for The Daily Telegraph today, condemning the doctors' strike. Doing so, he says he will ensure that non-consultant grade doctors are worse off than they would have been if they had not gone on strike. The vindictiveness of Labour is apparent.
He has also said elsewhere that the strike will ensure that private provision comes to the NHS sooner than it might otherwise have done. His real goal is clear.
In other comments, he said that doctors who are striking are undermining the union movement. But how can that be, when the doctors' union met every one of the stringent requirements to ensure that this strike was legitimate?
And what Streeting is also doing is playing games with data on doctors' pay.
It is undoubtedly true that new doctors start on £38,000 a year.
What Streeting is not saying is that large numbers of them cannot now get a job, because he is ensuring that there is no funding to guarantee those who have been trained as doctors a place in the NHS. That is entirely down to his incompetence.
He is also suggesting that by the time they are approaching consultant grade, they might earn £100,000 a year — but only as a consequence of top-up payments for weekend working, night working, working six days a week, and generally not having a life at all, which adds approximately £20,000 a year on top of their base salary when they reach this stage, most likely in their late 30s, which is £74,000 per annum.
What Streeting also fails to mention is that he is not funding progression to consultant level. In other words, he is leaving resident doctors stuck on lower grades of pay.
He also fails to mention the exceptional levels of student debt that doctors have.
And he forgets to mention the fact that doctors have to pay for a lot of their own equipment and their own postgraduate training, which is almost unknown anywhere else.
In other words, Streeting is playing a game of prejudice, and I sincerely hope he loses.
However, let me stand back from this and ask why this dispute is really happening, because it is that which Streeting so obviously fails to understand, as he always does, because he settled long ago on a career path which will reward him with significantly more than a doctor might ever enjoy, but almost certainly with less social benefit. He would suggest that his reward is for his superior intellectual capacity. I would argue that he displays none.
The reality is that this dispute revolves around three key issues.
The first is austerity, because, however the figures are interpreted, doctors are most emphatically worse off now than they were in 2010. Streeting cannot deny that, any more than he can deny that he is an arch proponent of austerity as an economic policy, based on his hatred of the state sector and all it does, which he shares with almost all his Labour Cabinet colleagues. There is, then, an ideological element to this dispute which cannot be denied.
Second, for each doctor, there is, however, something more fundamental than that. If we presume that a doctor reaches a salary — including all the extra payments for antisocial hours and everything else — of something around £70,000 by their early 30s (and that might be optimistic), then it is likely that they might then have borrowing capacity for a mortgage of between £280,000 and £350,000. In other words, in some parts of England, they might be able to buy an averagely priced property. But of course, that means that in very large parts of England, they will be able to do no such thing. And it is entirely unreasonable to think that a professional person must be in a relationship to be able to afford a home, and yet even successful doctors are now likely to be in that position in many parts of England.
To put this another way, these doctors are striking because they know they are being exploited.
They know that they are being exploited by the property market and all those within it — including landlords, but most especially banks and the Bank of England, and also the UK government that is permitting interest rates to be set at far too high a level.
They also know that they are being exploited by all the other monopolies — including those deliberately sanctioned by the state — who charge them excessive prices for everything from their commute, to the cost of their mobile phone, to utility bills, and so much else.
Although I suspect few doctors will put it as bluntly as this, this dispute is about the fact that they know the economic system they are working in is totally failing them and denying them any chance to flourish. And that is where Streeting's responsibility lies.
Third, they will see that Streeting has chosen to deliver his message to them through The Daily Telegraph, which they know hates the NHS. If he was intending to be provocative, he will most certainly have succeeded. If he wanted to be treated like an idiot, he clearly set out to achieve that goal. The man is really not helping himself — or us — by the stupidity of his far-right politics.
I would rather the doctors were not on strike. But, in an economy which is steadily moving towards failing everyone within it, except a wealthy elite, disputes of this sort are inevitable. If those who take massive responsibility cannot afford to survive within this country, there is something profoundly wrong, and that, in essence, is what this strike is highlighting. It is not about doctors' desire for better pay in isolation, although they are worth it. This is about an economic system that is on the precipice of collapse. This strike is a sign of things to come.
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To put this in context of similar professionals, the starting salaries for newly qualified solicitors at many perhaps most city law firms is over £100,000, at some of the US firms approaching £200,000. In other cities such as Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol , etc, it is approaching £70,000. https://www.rollonfriday.com/inside-info
These are the people who went to university with the “junior” doctors and are fully qualified as lawyers after about six or seven years of study and work – three or four at university, one or two at law school, and mostly two years as a trainee solicitor. Why are we expecting other newly qualified professionals at a similar stage in their career to survive and thrive on a tiny fraction of the pay? The doctors have fallen far behind. It is not just about the money, and perhaps the lawyers (and accountants, and bankers, etc) are massively overpaid, but in the end only because they and their firms can sell their services to clients who pay the fees. Even then, many of them struggle to buy their first house because property prices have increased so much.
We should have an NLS, National Legal Service with the protection of the law freely available to all at the point of need.
I don’t begrudge resident doctors their pay or a decent increase but they’ve done very much better than the bulk of public sector workers and will probably hold the country to ransom to get a better deal this time too. In many government departments many junior staff are earning not much more than the NMW
That is simply wrong: they have done very badly over 15 years.
Who else is at the bottom of the pile? Surely many others are equally justified to take action? The reality is that we face an income reset for a major part of the population and cannot expect to restore the income levels of the past in this economic wreck. Recovering past levels of relative income requires a government that cares and prepared to take a major step to redirect wealth to those who deserve it. I’m waiting, but too old, I fear, to see it.
The thing is, doctors can probably afford to stand out.
The government should be very worried.
So should the country.
I was at a party last week and a nurse said to me the doctors were pissing her off, she was surprised when I said I was grateful to them and the BMA, as they were the frontline peaceful resistance to mass degradation of all public sector salaries. We should thank them . She hadn’t thought about it that way, being so influenced by the corporate media.
Wes is another neoliberal tool, without heart or morals, waiting for his cushy number, just like all the other neoliberal instruments.
FYI
https://talkingupscotlandtwo.com/2025/07/25/as-resident-junior-doctor-strikes-begin-today-in-nhs-england-snp-settlement-praised-by-bma-means-nhs-scotland-set-to-avoid-thousands-of-excess-deaths-again/
Agree with your points, also quoting RM
“He (Streeting) also fails to mention”……that he is funded/supported/gets bribes from…………..US private health groups.
Streeting yet another LINO politico corrupt to the very core & only in politics for the money he can extract due to his position.
Streeting is yet another UK traitor, just like Starmer and all the others, traitors.
This is an attack line that the new Corbyn party needs to use.
Possibly points towards Wes Streeting’s incentive for being so callous, uncaring and fundamentally idiotic in terms of the NHS:
https://privatisation.everydoctor.org.uk/mp/wes-streeting/
He needs to do everything he wants to do before the next election. He only won by just over 500 votes last year. Leanne Mohamad stood against him as an independent.
Slightly off topic, though linked, have you seen today’s news about the Samaritans cutting back their services, on the BBC website. Funny old thing, but somehow the BBC don’t mention that the Government did provide financial support to Samaritans specifically through the £530,000 grant in March 2024 and via broader funding. But the time-limited local funding streams, essential to community suicide prevention, have ended, and no new commitments have been made to replace them. As of mid-2025, Samaritans reports receiving no ongoing government funding towards its helpline or prevention work.
Wow…
Is all I can say
How short sighted
Nobody in almost any kind of public management role seems to have any idea of the consequences of many of their decisions. Usually adding extra costs I suspect.
I was a volunteer at various times and for 12 years 1980 until 1992.
We always had two volunteers in the office and had resort to a ‘Leader’ who took a turn at being available to guide in case of emergency. The two volunteers were a presence and support for each other. I feel uneasy at the thought of someone at home handling a call from a suicidal person at 2 am.
The other, often unrecognised fact, is that people could visit our local centre 9am -9pm.
The only money going to volunteers was 1) for travel for the few who were on low income 2) accommodation if we went to a regional training day.
I can understand the concern that ‘bricks and mortar’ takes up much of the money but I think something important would be lost by these changes. And I appreciate things have changed.
The volunteers I worked with ranged from a lady with title, another was the wife of very senior military person to very ordinary folk. The background didn’t matter, we all worked as a team with mutual respect. It can be done and part of the reason I dislike those who venerate ‘leadership’ abilities.
The state has to be the primary public safety net but there is no substitute for person to person human contact and demands for ‘efficient or on-line solutions’ can mean something essential is lost.
Thanks
It’s only short-sighted if the govt wishes to prevent suicides. Does it?
It’s so nice to come here and hear this.
Out there, everyone is bitching about how much the doctors get paid in comparison to themselves, ignoring student debt, ignoring the genuine hard work to get there and the hours spent doing it.
The Tory 2010 project to divide and conquer is now mainstream politics (or part of the STP system).
Isn’t it interesting looking back, how Thatcher used to talk about the ‘politics of envy’ being used by the Left and looking at how Right-wing Britain now uses envy politics amongst a society starved of resources?
Whether Gaza or many other places in Britain, we are all Gazan’s now – this country even has parents and kids here not getting enough to eat.
Today Gaza.
Tomorrow – any social housing estate in Britain? The British government does not use missiles or phosphorus against its own people (that’s too obvious) – it uses under investment, niggardly benefit payments and regeneration projects instead and inadequate s.106 policies.
Much to agree with
Who do you think deserves more pay, the doctor who saved your life or the politician who is determined to make your life worse?
PAs who only have two years training after a science degree are paid more than a junior doctor.
This is who Streeting needs to listen to.
https://everydoctor.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/emergency-meeting-about-the-nhs-2025-02-22-v1.1.pdf
Fortunately over 140 MPs or their groups have met with them at their meetings in Westminster.
The UK’s elites are pushing for the ultra small state when the population has to pay for everything.
But another aim is very low salaries for the majority. Which means that a big chunk of the UK population will not be able to afford decent schooling, housing, food, health care and so on.
The elites see no problem because they can afford it now but might find that in the future the peasants will be revolting.
The UK is a failing state with its elites determined to make failure a success.
So Health Secretary Boxall, can you pay what we are asking for
Not really, its going to be difficult politically, BUT what I can offer you in addition to a pay rise is to pay training costs and student loans
A fudge I know but there are ways if you want
Talking of a failing economic system it seems this government is absolutely in favour of it:
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/jul/25/reeves-retrospective-legislation-potential-supreme-court-ruling-44bn-car-finance-scandal.
(Apologies if my techno incompetence hasn’t pasted the link properly).
Maybe this is why a Jeremy Corbyn party is picking up a lot of support eh labour party, while you’re losing it by the bucket load?And I don’t say this as a Corbyn fan, just pointing out I doubt he would be so craven towards the financial sector shysters.
In relation to the very reasonable point you make about housing, the starting salary for a lecturer at a research-intensive university is about £45,000 outside London. Assuming five years in postgraduate degrees living on a pittance, one would be doing well to get such a job by the late 20s. If you achieve senior lecturer after 8 years, then you’d be at about £60,000 by the mid to late 30s. Pay offer this year: 1.5%. Likelihood of industrial action achieving much better than that: not good, judging by recent years. How we are going to be able to attract excellent people into academic careers in this country if this situation continues I don’t know, but there seems little prospect of change.
Agreed
We are a society on the edge of collapse
Art and Design University teaching staff are largely hourly paid staff on termly contracts, or if they are lucky, yearly contracts usually pro rata so 3 hours for half a day, six hours for a day. Many do work in their disciplines as well as teaching, which is good but the universities try to pretend they support this work and pay such paltry hours for so much work that it is a labour of love. . I ran a department in a prestigious art and design university as
a ‘ visiting tutor’ so always very precarious. Britain has an great international reputation for design but the teachers are treated badly. There is a union but toothless and laughingly often run by managers. I loved my work had wonderful students and colleagues but it cannot be a career without tenure .
Agreed
This is deeply shoddy practice – but it is common across many disciplines now.
Academics of my generation were often driven by a passion for their subject, even if they could have made more money elsewhere. This seems to have changed; is there evidence?
When you can’t live your enthusiasm is unaffordable, however desirable it might be.
I listened yesterday to a lecture by Quinn Slobodian on his book Globalists I also am in the process of listening to the book on Audible, this is not a plug for YouTube or Audible, but if you want an eye opener to the values, reasons and aims of the original Neoliberals, what the outcomes have been so far then I encourage you to, at the very least, watch the YouTube lecture. Its hosted by another political economist Mark Blyth ( not my favourite Economics/finance Lecturer but a good one I think). Anyway, the encompassing thing here and I think it illustrates Neoliberalism, in that it says we are to be the serf/slaves/lower class, who aren’t allowed to do anything, or have the right to challenge the order supplied by them, but provide the wealth (economic and political) for the rulers of the globe. This is the aim of neoliberalism, “One philosophy to extort them, one philosophy to rule them, one class to keep them all in place and in their darkness bind them to their will. Neoliberalism (and this is where I sound like a crazy old man shouting ………..”doomed doomed, you’re all doomed”) is to me an evil philosophy of control, extortion, compulsion, exploitation, control. All the things Authoritarianism is Neoliberalism is, but on a global platform, This is Empire earth and no doubt there will be an Emperor.
So why are we doomed? Neoliberalism believes we the many have lost already, the security of the Empire is secure, the forces (armies are already being trained to kill the rest of us), what’s worse is those forces are complying with the Empire now, we see it across the world, engineered coups, beaten starved and crushed populations.
So Doctors, the people who are relatively well educated, were in the 60’s and 70’s hugely respected and pillars of the community, now being stamped on by neoliberal values, inch by inch our freedoms are eroded…………..Global Neoliberalism doesn’t need well educated and respected members of the community, it needs compliant subjects.
Neoliberalism doesn’t have compassion, it doesn’t care, its the same as the wealthy who live by these values.
And the legacy of the Hapsburg Empire? is Global Neoliberalism.
Maybe instead of looking purely at pay, we should look at the appalling way our resident doctors are treated, and the fact that significant numbers are voting with their feet either out of medicine totally, or to a country like Australia which has much better conditions for doctors.
How many jobs are you randomly allocated a job often at very short notice and expected to find accomodation, move and hit the ground running? And given many are in their late twenties/early thirties this move takes no account of any relationships, or family responsibilities. Forty years ago when I was a nurse, doctors had more say over their allocations and were at least provided with hospital accommodation.
How many professional jobs require the professional to fully fund their study and exam costs and professional organisation fees and insurance?
And why after taking on massive debt to train is there no obligation to provide a job and a training contract afterwards? I would include nurses, midwives and teachers in this one too.
The level of responsibility put upon very junior doctors is huge. I can’t think of many other jobs where you are constantly making life or death decisions under pressure, often during the night etc.
As with all strikes you need to look beyond the pay request and ask why a group of people who have chosen a career saving lives, feel things have got so bad their only solution is to strike. As someone approaching old age I am scared that we are losing a vital resource, our newly qualified doctors, and many will never return. And having worked in the NHS and seen how stressful their job is I don’t blame them. But I do blame our government for complacency and seeming to want a fight.
So very much to agree with.
But then, I am married to a retired doctor who went through all this.
You accuse Wes Streeting of incompetence. Surely it’s worse than that. He is actively working to ensure that doctors’ pay and conditions are so bad that they will deprive the NHS of their experience, by working only in private practice or in another country. Those of us who will never be able to afford private provision will be left without medical care or emergency surgery, and it will be Mr Streeting’s fault. This is what he intends to happen.
You are almost certainly right. I am too generous.
Agreed entirely, but let’s not forget the fact that Streeting has been paid substantial sums by lobbying individuals or organisations. In anywhere else but Parliament, accepting bribes is legally punishable, but in the UK’s ridiculous kid-on ‘constitution’ accepting bribes is permitted provided the recipient declares it in the Lobbying Register. While there are regulations suuposedly to prevent abuse, they are clearly loopholes. How else can the wholesale “persuasion” of current cabinet ministers (clothing, event tickets, spectacles etc) be legitimate? To the outsiders (you and me) it’s buying government support, to the politicians and lobbyists it’s everyday ‘infuencing’ with financial rewards attached. Streeting got money from US health companies and, just by chance, we’re seeing the future of the NHS in dire danger. It’s all a maneouvre to further the incursion of neoliberalism into all our lives. And tell me how will ill people, accident victims etc (other than the ultra rich ill people) manage to afford to get medical aid? Tough cookie, pal, you’re irrelevant.
I secured a junior House Officer post at the Royal Liverpool University Hospital in 2001 and the contract was for 56 hours at about £25k. In real terms that’s ~£47k today so there has been a significant real-terms cut since then. And back in my day the medical student numbers were matched to the available places so we were guaranteed a job upon passing finals, which isn’t the case today.
Thanks
Streeting has received over £250,000 in donations from private healthcare organisations. The whole Front Bench has received donations from the Israel lobby. Quadrature (fossil fuels, arms sales, private healthcare) gave Labour £4 million which wasn’t publicly declared until after the Election.
I do stuff for the 99% Organisation, and halting privatisation of the NHS is the project I’m involved in. Our argument is that to have productivity, you need a healthy workforce. To have a healthy workforce, people must have access to timely, good healthcare. The most cost effective solution is a publicly funded health system (Commonwealth Fund et al) as long as it is properly resourced and staffed. Without a workforce in good health, the economy will collapse. As it is, of course.
Fundamental to all that is the competence, health and wellbeing of the staff. Failing to see that encouragement, not confrontation, will produce a staff with high morale is unbelievably shortsighted. And negligent. “All leave is cancelled until morale improves” doesn’t work. But that’s what you get when you elect what a KGB Colonel once described to me as “mediocrities”.
Relying on the goodwill of people who save our lives doesn’t pay the bills. I support the strike.
I am grateful to the junior doctors, and indeed all of the NHS staff, who cared for me in 2023 – seriously ill and not expected to get through it, but if there was a crisis, whatever time of day or night, when called by the nursing staff, one of those young doctors was there to help – I did (and do) thank them all.
I’ve not been there.
But I have sat by bedsides where that has happened.
I echo that.
I really cannot understand why more emphasis is not put on the ‘brain drain’. Today’s Resident Doctors see their colleagues leaving in droves. Those who care can see this happening and are striking in an effort to prevent it – the public would respect this if it were spelt out to them, but it gets passing, if any, mention in the media. My heart goes out to them; I despair.
My point exactly. When I trained as a nurse 40 years ago it was rare for a doctor to leave the profession or go to work in another country (although nurses did this in droves). Now we are losing doctors either to other countries or out of medicine totally and we are no longer attractive to doctors from India etc. who have other better options. The main sticking point for our healthcare system, NHS or private is a lack of trained staff and doctors in particular take many years to train. Also the lack of sufficient support staff to enable clinical staff to focus on clinical work not excessive admin. Streeting is getting rid of thousands of experienced admin/support staff, which is a bizarre way of helping support our already overstretched clinical staff.
We see the same simplistic and toxic narrative in other public services. Eliminate the management and administration and spend more on the front line staff (doctors or nurses, police, social workers, whatever).
But the management and administrative tasks don’t go away. Someone needs to deal HR (hiring and firing, training, progression, pay, etc) and procurement (from drugs and syringes to bedsheets and pens and paper) and premises (including food and cleaning) and necessary record keeping and so on. So you end up with the highly trained front line staff doing those roles instead of dedicated and skilled professionals. All this in a drive to cut cost and increase efficiency. But it is much more efficient to divide tasks between people who specialise in them. The NHS in particular is chronically under-managed compared to health service organisations in other countries.
Much to agree with
David Byrne says:
Follow the money.
Streeting, in common with other government colleagues, know that their careers will be over in 2029. Better to enhance the CV now to make it attractive to private equity (PE), hedge funds and big USA banks.
MO: allow the sell-off of GP surgeries; allow Goldman Sachs to ‘threaten’ our esteemed Chancellor; allow the sale of personal medical records to PE owned insurance companies. The list goes on.
Look across the pond, rather the sewer, to see how corporate/financial/governmental corruption and greed can corrode a whole nation. And it’s happening here.
Richard, thank you for your invaluable work.
I’m going to bed now!
Thanks, David.
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