Today’s doctors strike proves how the NHS needs radical reform

This is a bleak day for the NHS. The doctors strike has gone ahead and some 3,000 operations have been cancelled. Talks broke down last night, and the British Medical Association has shown it is quite prepared to put patients in the firing line in its dispute over a deal that would mean a pay rise, not a pay cut, for 99 per cent of doctors. From 8am this morning, only emergency care will be provided.

Treatment for that once-virulent condition, the British disease of strikes, has largely been successful. The number of working days lost to industrial action in the first ten months of last year was the second-lowest since records began. Pay and conditions have been relentlessly improving. Since the Winter of Discontent in 1979, the average worker’s disposable income has almost doubled. And no thanks to pressure from trade unions: the steady progress comes from the transformative effects of an open economy and a free market.