Labour must share the blame for the junior doctors’ row

The BMA’s decision to cancel the first of its planned five-day strikes yesterday was justified as a response to concerns over patient safety. Yet these warnings were nothing new. The General Medical Council issued frank advice to doctors hours earlier saying the strikes could harm patients. And the former Department of Health director Sir John Oldham – who also wrote Labour’s health policy review two years ago – also said the strikes were unethical. These interventions followed last week’s statement from the Academy of Royal Medical Colleges that, wait for it, made it clear the strikes would cause ‘real problems’ for the NHS. But amidst those warnings, Labour’s silence on patient safety was deafening. In an interview last weekend, Labour’s shadow secretary of state for health, Diane Abbott, made it clear that, should the strikes go ahead, she would be on the picket line. This perhaps isn’t surprising. In April, Jeremy Corbyn and his shadow chancellor John McDonnell soberly marched on Whitehall shoulder-to-shoulder with junior doctors.