JUNIOR doctors walking out for a fifth time this weekend are blamed by Tory ministers for the NHS’s record-breaking waiting lists.

Their pay restoration demands are billed as greedy, though the case they make is straightforward, as the British Medical Association’s junior doctors committee co-chair Dr Robert Laurenson points out: “Over the last 15 years, the government has cut our pay by 31.7 per cent so we’re looking to restore that pay back to what it was like in 2008.”

Rishi Sunak declines even to discuss this — maintaining that the current offer is “fair and final,” on the grounds it has been recommended by an “independent” (by which he means government-appointed) pay review body.

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Labour backs the Tory policy for reducing waiting lists, which is to increase NHS use of private-sector providers.

This cannot possibly work, since the private sector is parasitical on the NHS and poaches NHS staff. Commissioning more private-sector work actively worsens the NHS staffing crisis.

Our demand ultimately needs to be for more resources for the NHS. It needs more staff, it needs to pay them more and it needs to treat them better.

The Westminster consensus against raising spending needs to be challenged. It’s therefore disappointing that Scottish Labour simply carped at the Scottish National Party after research it commissioned exposed the huge funding gap between the NHS and European healthcare systems — with Germany and Norway spending a full third more per head on healthcare than we do.

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