Sun Junior Doctors Smear Busted

The dispute between hospital doctors and Jeremy Hunt (the former Culture Secretary) has not gone away: scheduled industrial action at the end of next month has now been upgraded to an all-out withdrawal of labour. The British Medial Association has confirmed “This means that all junior doctors will not attend work, or provide emergency cover between those hours [0800 to 1700 hours, 26 and 27 April]”.

That's what I bladdy think of youse bladdy National bladdy Health bladdy service, ya whinging Pommie drongoes!

It does not take a great deal of thought to realise that the situation is becoming not just difficult, but highly fraught. So cool heads should be the order of the day - but not at the Baby Shard bunker, where the Super Soaraway Currant Bun has gone into rant overdrive at the thought of a group of workers exercising their right to withdraw their labour. “Sack the docs” froths a typically thundering Sun Says this morning.

And they mean it: “THE new all-out pay strike by junior doctors is a declaration of war on the Government using patients as cannon fodder. If any die, or even suffer, the young medics responsible must be struck off … If these militants and their hard-left union intend to up the ante in what has become an infantile and politically-driven row over Saturday pay, so should the General Medical Council”. Do go on.

“Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt has bent over backwards for the strikers … Doctors have no right to abandon emergency patients in order to swell their bank balances … If a few budding careers need to end abruptly before the rest finally understand their sworn duties as doctors, so be it”. A few sackings Pour Encourager Les Autres, eh?

And to that I call bullshit. Saturdays are not weekdays. Other groups of workers - like the train and tube drivers that the Sun likes to rant about - may treat Saturdays as part of the working week, but that comes with paying more overall. Moreover, Hunt has not bent over backwards - far from it: the Saturday sticking point was on the point of being resolved when Hunt personally stepped in and vetoed the settlement.

It gets worse: the Sun claims to support the NHS (although its generously remunerated staff tend to go private) but seems not to notice that the service is stretched to breaking point because of staffing shortages. Sacking some of those staff would only make things worse - not for the Murdoch doggies, who in reality don’t give a toss about the NHS, but those Sun readers who would get it in the neck.

The Sun has already lied to its readers about the dispute - it admitted the doctors could not choose what times they worked, after claiming they could - and now it is lying about Hunt’s intransigence. This is a group of workers at the end of their tether. They often have to put in long hours, caring for patients who may be aggressive, unpleasant, drunk, drugged, stubborn, unappreciative - and Sun readers as well.

But good to see anyone who dares to step out of line being castigated as “Militant” and “Hard left”. The Sun’s hacks may not listen to the hospital doctors, but they listen to the playbook of Fox News Channel (fair and balanced my arse). Pass the sick bucket.