STEPHEN POLLARD: Stuff the unions, we should strike for a 35% tax cut

STEPHEN POLLARD: Stuff the unions, it’s us ordinary workers who should strike… for a 35% cut in our taxes

Don’t be ill. Don’t have an accident. Don’t travel by train. Don’t go by bus. Don’t expect your bins to be emptied. Don’t wait for the post. Don’t try to get a passport. And as for the potholes . . . don’t get me started.

Welcome to Britain in 2023, the land in which nothing — or in the public sector, at least, it sometimes seems no one —works. It’s small wonder that a poll this week by market research consultancy Savanta found that 63 per cent of us think taxpayers do not get good value from the services we fund.

Local councils have become a byword for uselessness. Find a council which actually gets the basics done, such as repairing potholes or ensuring the bins are collected more than sporadically, and I’ll show you a unicorn — because no such council exists. There are simply some which are less awful than others.

Inadequate

A toxic mix of inefficiency, waste, political posturing and the new craze for strikes has led to this appalling state of affairs in which fantasy demands for more pay have started to collide with reality.

Yesterday, for example, junior doctors embarked on their second strike in pursuit of a 35 per cent pay rise.

Yesterday junior doctors embarked on their second strike in pursuit of a 35 per cent pay rise

A toxic mix of inefficiency, waste, political posturing and the new craze for strikes has led to this appalling state of affairs

But once you’ve stopped to catch your breath at the sheer brass neck of their demands, another thought might cross your mind.

Given how much we hand over in taxes to fund public services, and how little we are now getting in return, perhaps it’s those of us who toil in the private sector who should be striking for 35 per cent. But not as a pay rise — rather, as a tax cut.

After all, what are we getting in return for paying the highest taxes imposed in this country since World War II?

Following Chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s budget last month, the UK’s tax burden is on track to hit 37.7 per cent of GDP. His decision to freeze income tax thresholds will result in 3.2 million more people paying income tax, 2.1 million more people being brought into the 40p higher-rate band and 350,000 more paying the 45p rate. Total receipts from income tax are forecast to rise from £225 billion in 2021-22 to £321 billion in 2027-28.

And what do we receive in return for this staggering largesse? Why, already inadequate services brought even lower by strike action.

Following Chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s budget last month, the UK’s tax burden is on track to hit 37.7 per cent of GDP

In a fortnight, teachers will be downing tools. Bus drivers up and down the country have withdrawn their labour at various times over the past few months. And while the train strikes have been suspended, no one sane would bet against the unions walking out again in the near future.

Meanwhile, postmen and women have walked out, as have university staff and even driving-test examiners. On and on it goes, with pretty much the entire public sector getting in on the act.

The idea the strikes are aiming to right some kind of wrong over pay is drivel. Quite apart from the job security offered by being employed on the taxpayers’ dime, many such positions are extremely well rewarded.

Take the train drivers. Their average salary is £59,000 and the job is so appealing that there are no vacancies.

But that’s not enough for the RMT, which is driven by nothing more elevated than greed. Its figurehead Mick Lynch spews out rubbish about safety concerns, but the strikes are really about one thing — money — and if that means destroying the daily commute for millions, so be it.

Mick Lynch spews out rubbish about safety concerns, but the strikes are really about one thing — money — and if that means destroying the daily commute for millions, so be it

If it means deserted streets, pubs, restaurants, bars and shops at Christmas, as we saw last year, and sending businesses into bankruptcy, they don’t give a damn.

And just in case you fancy fleeing the country to get away from this life of misery and chaos, make sure your travel documents are in order —because, of course, the passport office started a five-week strike last week.

There was a time when you could apply for a passport and hope to get it in a reasonable, predictable time. Now union leader, Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union, says: ‘There will be huge delays in the already ten weeks that people are supposed to apply for passports, and there will be huge disruption on the fast-track service that people can use when they want to get a passport quicker.’

You can almost see him salivating at the thought of the misery he can cause with one flick of his magic strike wand.

But it’s the junior doctors, who began their strike at 7am yesterday, who really get my goat. The British Medical Association has always been hard-nosed when it comes to protecting its members — it’s a union in all but name — but it is now in the hands of hardcore Left-wing activists who have seen how easy it is to bring the NHS to its knees.

You can almost see Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the PCS, salivating at the thought of the misery he can cause with one flick of his magic strike wand

They have leapt at the chance to strike and show what more damage they can do to it.

And they have been aided in this effort by other healthcare workers. The NHS has been hit by 25,000 paramedics walking out, along with emergency care assistants, ambulance technicians, call handlers and other 999 crew members.

Devastating

The nurses’ strikes, meanwhile, are currently on hold while the Royal College of Nursing asks its members if they want to accept the Government’s pay offer or strike again.

What a state of affairs for a health system in the modern world — not to mention one with a post-pandemic waiting list of seven million-plus.

Even the apparatus of government appears to be falling apart. This week it was reported that civil servants’ mental health sick days have risen by 38 per cent. Mark Serwotka — him again — came out with predictable guff about ‘the devastating impact the Government’s appalling treatment is having on workers’.

Translated into reality, that means that even more civil servants than usual are taking time off.

The nurses’ strikes, meanwhile, are currently on hold while the Royal College of Nursing asks its members if they want to accept the Government’s pay offer or strike again

Why? Because they can. Many workers in the private sector would jump at the ‘devastating impact’ wreaked by being awarded a job for life, six weeks of annual holiday, a cushioned pension, and the chance to work from home whenever you feel like it.

Of course, our children are having their lives turned upside down by the union barons, too. Having endured a terrible time as a result of the pandemic, what pupils needed more than anything was stability.

So what does that most pig-headed, selfish and mean- spirited of all unions — the NEU, which represents teachers, lecturers and educational support staff — do? Cause as much chaos as it can by targeting pupils’ prospects as exam season approaches.

Defeat

What the NEU always keeps quiet about is that, compared to most people, teachers are very well remunerated, not least thanks to their pensions. The average private sector employer contributes six per cent of salary towards retirement; the Teachers’ Pension Scheme employer contribution is 23.7 per cent.

That takes the average class teacher’s pay and pension package to more than £50,000 a year. Hilariously, Labour’s Shadow Foreign Secretary David Lammy said that ‘teachers have to go to food banks because they cannot afford to get by’. A career in stand-up surely beckons.

What the NEU always keeps quiet about is that, compared to most people, teachers are very well remunerated, not least thanks to their pensions

The NEU, like its predecessor, the NUT, is more concerned with hard-Left politics than actually making things work better. Thirteen members of its National Executive, for example, signed a statement by the Stop The War Coalition blaming Nato for Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

The chance to defeat the Government through strikes was no doubt irresistible to its leaders. Meanwhile, the rest of us have to deal with the consequences of a public sector that either won’t work or can’t do the job properly.

Enough. It’s time for the Government we fund to give us our due.

So, prepare the placards — if we don’t get what we deserve, we’re walking out. Power to the (taxpaying) people!

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