Is Britain heading for a summer of discontent?

With workers across the economy looking set to go on strike during the next few months there is talk of a ‘summer of discontent’. The inspiration for this trope is the infamous 1978-9 ‘winter of discontent’, when despite the urgings of Labour ministers to show pay restraint, poorly paid public sector workers left rubbish piling up in the streets and, legend has it, the dead unburied. When the strikers returned to work the government’s effort to keep wages down was in tatters, along with its perceived authority to govern.

There have been many mooted summers of discontent over the years, but none has ever rivalled the original. They have all – appropriately enough given the vagaries of the British weather – ended up as damp squibs. Maybe this one will be different. Britons are now experiencing unprecedented price inflation, which comes on top of a consistent squeeze on their living standards due to the impact of the 2008 financial crisis which then got worse thanks to Covid, which has in turn left employees more alienated and discontented than ever.