Labour vs labour: how can the government claim to be promoting growth?

Growth, growth, growth: that was what Keir Starmer told us would be his government’s priority in his first press conference as Prime Minister. Nearly three months on, as the Labour party heads into its first conference in power for 15 years, it is becoming ever harder to reconcile Starmer’s promise with the policies that his government seems determined to deliver.

With junior doctors voting to accept a 22 per cent pay rise, yet another group of public sector workers has been lavished with financial reward without any obligation to accept or implement more productive working practices. The NHS is in the midst of a pay bonanza at a time when productivity in the health service has been declining. Since the pandemic, ever more employees are delivering significantly fewer treatments. As NHS England admitted recently, productivity in acute medicine is still down 11 per cent on pre-pandemic levels.

It is the same issue on the railways, where train drivers – already among the best-paid groups of workers in the country – have been awarded a 14 per cent increase over three years, again with no conditions attached.