Strike!

There are a load of op-eds in support of the Doctors' Strike, some good and some not. All of them, however, tend to go big on the difficult and high pressure job that doctors do, and how important the NHS is to us all. A lot of them talk about patient safety, and how dangerous the proposed new contract is. A lot tug on emotional heartstrings:

What he meant by all this (we’d sit up at night talking and waiting for trains to go by in the distance) is that this was the first place he’d known any real kindness and he wished to return it. For most of us it will be the last place we know kindness. How sad that we have allowed it to fall into the hands of dreadful people who know no compassion at all, not even for themselves.

But since reading the FT on the strike yesterday, I find myself automatically completing these otherwise very convincing articles with "and that's why doctors must be paid slightly more on Saturdays."

I have to admit that this does slightly detract from the force of the argument.