This dispute has now turned ugly. The junior doctors are about to go out on all out strike for the first time in the history of the NHS. The government now accuses them of being politically motivated and trying to bring down the Health Secretary and even the government itself. This is an extraordinary claim from a government engulfed in its own civil war over Brexit, its budget a fiasco and now in trouble over the unpopular proposal for compulsory academies for all. It hardly needs the junior doctors to lend a hand since it appears trying to topple itself.
The plain fact is that following re-organisations which began with Thatcher, went on apace under New Labour, continued with some restraint with the Coalition and now again in full swing, the NHS is a chaotic structure of quangos, trusts, foundations and commissioning boards led by overpaid executives who waste vast resources going round in circles. Meanwhile problems with waiting times and budget deficits mounting, integration of health care more rhetoric than reality and a funding system which is mathematically dysfunctional, this Health Secretary thinks it good to pick a fight with the very young people upon whom all our lives depend. It tells you all you want to know about Jeremy Hunt and the government of which he is a member. But now times are changing. The public by a margin is behind the young doctors and the young everywhere are mobilising against the dead hands of power which hobble their lives.