We’ve forgotten how to say ‘no’

It has been widely observed that we live in a society marked by cancellation, censorship and cowardice in the face of mob rule. To this we might add a fourth ‘c’: capitulation.

The decision announced yesterday by Rachel Reeves to offer junior doctors an average pay rise of a 22.3 per cent in an effort to end the strikes is the most glaring example, being all-too-reminiscent of the catastrophic efforts by the craven Labour governments of the 1970s to placate the unions with inflation-accelerating pay-deals.

Whether this announcement, and the decision to give six million public sector workers including nurses, teachers and police officers rises of about 5 per cent, will satisfy today’s disgruntled is not yet clear. But the signs are already ominous. ‘I don’t think that this is a good deal,’ said Dr Robert Laurenson, co-chair of the British Medical Association junior doctors committee, speaking on Times Radio. ‘I think that this is the best deal possible but I think there are significant deficits in it.