Labour's Stance on Striking Doctors Is as Hollow as a Christmas Cracker—Their Legislation Risks a Return to the 1970s!

TO hear them talk, anyone would think this Labour Government is virulently opposed to the five-day strike by junior doctors.

“Dangerous and utterly irresponsible!” seethed . “Don’t abandon patients — work with us to improve conditions and rebuild the !”

This Labour Government is virulently opposed to the five-day strike by junior doctorsCredit: Getty Health Sec Wes Streeting and PM Sir Keir Starmer have both tried to dissuade protestersCredit: AFP

Health Secretary was even more scathing.

“Don’t tell me you don’t want to be out on , because that is exactly where you are!” spat raging Wes, calling the British Medical Association “moaning minnies”.

Stern words indeed!

But as empty as a cracker on Boxing Day.

Even as leaders slag off the striking resident doctors, the new name for junior doctors, this Government is bringing in legislation built to take us back to the strike-ravaged 1970s and make you believe Maggie Thatcher never happened.

became law when it received Royal Assent on Thursday.

It immediately repealed the 2023 Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act, which guaranteed basic levels of service during industrial action by the essential workers we can’t live without.

Meaning fire and rescue services, border security, nuclear installations and health services.

But now, essential services will be free to strike when they like, without the obligation to provide any minimum service.

So even as Starmer and Streeting rant about young doctors downing stethoscopes, Labour’s workers’ rights bill is making it totally fine for strikes to go ahead.

The Employment Rights Bill — brainchild of sweetheart of the dole queue — is a mandate for industrial action.

And Labour’s great gift to its union paymasters. The unions could not be happier, or gloating more openly.

“The Employment Rights Act will represent a massive accomplishment for Unison itself,” preens the public service union on its website, “after years of campaigning, lobbying and intense negotiations by activists, staff members and the group of Labour MPs with links to the union.”

The reason why a working-class man like my father never voted for Labour was because he believed the party was in the pockets of the big trade unions.

Labour have made giving someone a job far too expensive, far too risky

Tony

My dad was right. Public sector wages are rising at the fastest rate on record while the private sector — you know, the businesses whose taxes actually pay for everything — are in a fight for survival.

The private sector has been crushed by hikes in the employers’ National Insurance contribution, literally a tax on employing someone.

The Employments Rights Bill — brainchild of Angela Rayner, sweetheart of the dole queue — is a mandate for industrial actionCredit: AFP

It is mindlessly milked by a government that does not have one member of the Cabinet who ever ran a business in their lives.

Too risky

Our socialist masters are making laws — hiking the minimum wage, making it easier to sue employers, paternity leave from day one on a job — that will stop battered businesses from hiring.

Labour have made giving someone a job far too expensive, far too risky.

Even as the unions were celebrating Labour’s employer-loathing legislation, unemployment reached a five-year high.

, education or training — Labour’s lost generation.

And thanks to the job-destroying stupidity of the Employment Rights Bill, that is just the start.

Oh, comrades, you are not protecting working people!
You are condemning them to the dole

Sydney’s au natural look works wonders

Sydney Sweeney, right, subjected herself to a lie-detector test in Vanity Fair conducted by Amanda Seyfried, left, her co-star in the psychological thriller The HousemaidCredit: Getty

HAS had work done?

Er, no. Few people look like Sydney before . And nobody looks like that after cosmetic surgery.

Yet El Syd, 28, gamely subjected herself to a lie- detector test in Vanity Fair conducted by , her co-star in the psychological thriller The Housemaid.

“I just have to ask, are your boobs real?” asked Amanda.

“Yes,” said Sydney, without hesitation.

The lie detector said  . . . true.

“Have you ever had any work done on them?” quizzed Amanda.

“No,” said Sydney, emphatically. “I’ve never gotten any work done anywhere.”

And the lie detector said . . .  true.

Mind you, Sydney Sweeney, who plays a hot young house-keeper disrupting a wealthy household in her new film, does get some work done in The Housemaid.

Even if it is only a little light dusting and emptying the dishwasher.

Rock’s wore hero

Antony Price may be an unfamiliar name, but his iconic glam-rock designs for Bowie, Roxy Music, Lou Reed and the Rolling Stones are instantly recognisableCredit: Getty Price styled the covers of the first eight Roxy Music albums.Credit: Redferns

was the man who dressed glam rock.

The name may not be immediately familiar.

But the looks Price created for , Roxy Music, Lou Reed and the Rolling Stones are probably seared into your consciousness.

Price, who has died at the age of 80, was a lad who graduated from the Royal College of Art in 1968.

Within the year, he was making crutch-enhancing trousers for on the Gimme Shelter tour designed to, er, highlight the singer’s distinguishing features.

Antony later designed Jerry Hall’s wedding dress.

“I’m not a fashion designer,” Price insisted. “I’m in the theatrical business.”

Antony Price was largely responsible for Bowie’s dapper alien look in the early Seventies.

He styled the covers of the first eight Roxy Music albums.

For men, his style was both spiffy and outlandish. He designed suits that were meant to be worn everywhere but the office.

The first tie I ever bought was from his shop at the far end of the King’s Road in Chelsea.

It was like owning, and wearing, a little bit of rock and roll history.

No designer was ever closer to the music than Antony Price.

His importance to the way we were – and the way we wore – can never be overstated.

Affair point

KRISTIN CABOT, the HR executive captured on Coldplay’s kiss cam, says her life has been “ruined” – yet she wasn’t even having an affair with her boss, silver fox Andy Byron, when Chris Martin’s cam shone on the canoodling couple like a policeman’s torch in Lovers’ Lane.

All that fuss and they were not even having an affair? That’s not very rock ’n’ roll. But then neither are Coldplay.

BEST wishes to you and yours for a lovely Christmas.

Thanks for reading, and see you next Sunday!

On Tap of his game

Film director Rob Reiner, allegedly murdered with his wife Michele by their son NickCredit: Getty

IN the aftermath of the unimaginably sad and horrific death of Rob Reiner, allegedly murdered with his wife Michele by their son Nick, someone called the director “a big-hearted genius”.

The perfect epitaph for Hollywood’s most beloved storyteller.

Rob Reiner’s range of work was so wide, a lot of people did not realise quite how much of his work they loved.

But this was the man who directed Spinal Tap (the funniest mock-documentary ever), When Harry Met Sally (the gold standard for rom coms), an unforgettable coming-of- age saga (Stand by Me), a classic courtroom drama (A Few Good Men), as well as Misery, a thriller worthy of Hitchcock, and The Princess Bride, one of the most beloved films of all time.

Rob Reiner told stories that captivated all humanity.

His death, and the death of the love of his life, is shocking, distressing and unspeakably cruel.

His films will be watched for ever.

But like many Reiner fans, I had not seen his most recent film – Spinal Tap II: The End Continues, released just three months ago, and 40 years after the original.

I skipped Tap 2 because most critics said it did not quite reach the heights of the original film.

But knowing there will be no more Rob Reiner films, I watched it on the day he died and laughed from the opening credits to final freeze frame – where Rob (playing the Martin Scorsese-like Marty DiBergi) is performing the Heimlich Manoeuvre on Spinal Tap’s latest drummer, in a desperate bid to prevent her from choking to death.

And if it is not quite as funny as the first Spinal Tap film, well, neither is anything else.

HEATED debate about the best joke – or best Andrew Mountbatten- Windsor joke, as we have to say now.

This is my favourite.

“Why is Andrew like ? Because it was all downhill after left.”

Not bad! Although I don’t remember the irascible old Scot sucking anybody’s toes after the sad split.

IT is not a betrayal of to want to get on with our neighbours in the .

What is a betrayal of common sense is allowing the people next door unlimited access to your fridge whenever they feel a bit peckish.

The UK has confirmed we will not be taking part in the European Union Security Action for Europe defence fund because the cost, around £2billion, was considered a bit steep.

Frankly, Europe should be paying, and begging, the UK’s Armed Forces to take part in the defence of continental Europe.

However, we will be rejoining the Erasmus student exchange programme for £1billion, even though the heavy traffic will be coming our way as students flock to the UK to improve their English.

The Government insists that the is going to benefit young Brits from all backgrounds.

No, the Erasmus scheme benefits someone called Quentin going to the Sorbonne for a year.

And I still think the EU should be paying us.