When Politicians Stop Performing: Wes Streeting's Brutal Honesty on NHS Doctor Strikes.
The Health Secretary did something so rare in British politics that I'm recommending you actually listen to him. Let that sink in.
(Image: LBC)
The Facts Nobody’s Disputing.
On Friday, November 14th, thousands of resident doctors began their 13th walkout since March 2023. Five days. £300 million cost to the NHS. And here’s the kicker: 48% of resident doctors polled by The Times wanted the action called off. Only 33% thought it should go ahead.
The majority of doctors this strike supposedly represents didn’t want it to happen.
What Actually Happened on LBC Radio.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting appeared on LBC Radio’s Nick Ferrari show this morning, November 14th. A resident doctor named Niraj called in with the standard script: “None of us wants to be on strike. I would rather be at work today.”
Streeting’s response wasn’t political theatre:
“I’m sorry, but when you say I don’t want to be out on strike today. Yes, you do, because you have made that choice.“
Then: “So don’t tell me you don’t want to be out on strike because that’s exactly where you are. You made that choice. Own it and own the damage it will do to your patients.“
When did basic accountability become remarkable in British politics?
The Numbers That Destroy The BMA’s Narrative.
Resident doctors received a 28.9% pay rise from this Labour government. The highest pay increase in the entire public sector. Two years running.
After this increase, resident doctors earn between £38,831 and £73,992 before overtime. Consultants make approximately £127,540.
The BMA is demanding a 26% pay uplift to “restore earnings” to 2008 levels.
Streeting offered:
1,000 additional speciality training places
Cancellation of exam fees and portfolio costs
Improved working conditions
Accelerated career progression
The BMA rejected this without putting it to their members for a vote.
The union leadership knew their members would vote to accept the deal. So they didn’t ask them.
The Elephant in the Operating Theatre.
Wes Streeting has accepted over £372,000 in donations since 2015 from companies and individuals with links to private healthcare. That’s more than 60% of his total declared donations.
The largest: £144,900 from recruitment companies, £95,000 from a hedge fund manager with over $500m in United Health (America’s largest health insurer).
Is this a conflict of interest? Absolutely. Does it invalidate everything he says about NHS strikes? No.
Here’s the logical test: Are his facts about the 28.9% pay rise accurate? Yes. Are the polling numbers real? Yes. Is the £300 million cost per strike real? Yes.
You can question motives while acknowledging demonstrable facts. That’s intellectual honesty.
What £300 Million Actually Means.
Each five-day strike costs £300 million, which isn’t budgeted. During the last strike, more than 54,000 procedures and appointments needed cancellation or rescheduling.
Think about this: Doctors are striking for better conditions and more training places. Each strike costs £300 million which could fund those exact improvements.
The BMA leadership is literally burning the money that could solve the problems they claim to be addressing.
The Democratic Deficit
Here’s where it gets genuinely dystopian. Last year, 30,000 newly qualified doctors applied for just 10,000 speciality training positions. That’s a real crisis worth addressing.
Streeting offered 1,000 additional training places immediately. The BMA rejected it because it wasn’t accompanied by more money, even though doctors just got the biggest pay rise in the public sector.
And they did this without consulting their members, despite polling showing a majority opposed the strike.
That’s not democracy. That’s union officials maintaining their relevance through perpetual conflict, regardless of what their members actually want.
The Cartel Accusation.
At the NHS Providers conference, Streeting went nuclear: “The BMA is no longer a professional voice for doctors. They are increasingly behaving in a cartel-like behaviour.”
Consider the pattern:
Leadership rejects offers without consulting members
Polling shows majority oppose strikes
Leadership proceeds anyway
£300m burned per strike
No democratic vote on accepting improved conditions
That does start to look like an organisation protecting its institutional interests rather than serving its members. Which is definitionally how cartels operate.
Who Benefits From NHS Chaos?
If you wanted conditions favourable to NHS privatisation, what would you need? Public loss of faith. Growing waiting lists. Visible failure.
Constant strikes achieve this perfectly. Every cancelled appointment builds the case for private alternatives.
Streeting’s donors have interests that would benefit from exactly this chaos. Does that mean he’s deliberately engineering NHS failure? Not necessarily. But it’s genuinely complicated.
He’s correct about BMA leadership dysfunction. He’s stating facts about pay rises. His offer is real. All of that can be true simultaneously with his donor relationships creating conflicts of interest.
Reality is complicated. Binary thinking - he’s either entirely right or entirely wrong - is for children and activists.
The Nigel Farage Warning.
Streeting deployed his strongest weapon: “There isn’t a more pro-doctor, pro-NHS health secretary waiting in the wings - there is Nigel Farage and the Reform Party.”
That’s psephological reality. Labour won. Conservatives collapsed. Reform came third. Who’s positioned to benefit from Labour failure?
If Labour can’t make the NHS work, voters won’t return to the Conservatives who broke it. They’ll try Reform.
The BMA leadership can’t recognise they’re sawing through the branch they’re sitting on.
What Actual Accountability Looks Like.
Niraj wanted to absolve himself of responsibility while taking the action. Classic activist positioning: I’m being forced into this regrettable but necessary action.
Except the BMA leadership chose to reject the offer without consulting members who, when polled, opposed the strike.
Every doctor who walked that picket line made a choice. Their patients waiting in pain for cancelled procedures don’t care about their feelings. They care about the material reality: their doctor chose not to be there.
That’s harsh. It’s also true. And somebody finally said it.
The Questions Nobody’s Asking.
Why did the BMA reject the government offer without putting it to a member vote?
How does this strike represent democratic will when 48% opposed it versus 33% supporting it?
How do union leaders justify burning £300 million that could fund the improvements they claim to want?
If Streeting’s donors benefit from NHS chaos, do BMA strikes serve their interests more than a functioning NHS would?
Nobody asks because they complicate the narrative. Union leaders are heroes. Ministers are villains. Nice simple stories.
Reality doesn’t care about your narrative preferences.
Why This Matters.
This isn’t about doctor pay or training places. This is about whether British institutions can function at all, or whether we’re trapped in cycles of performative conflict where solving problems would threaten problem-solving organisations.
Streeting did something unusual: he named the contradiction and refused to pretend it doesn’t exist. In a healthy political system, that would be unremarkable. In ours, it’s noteworthy.
That gap tells you everything about British institutional decline.
The Uncomfortable Truth.
Wes Streeting, a Labour Health Secretary taking hundreds of thousands from private healthcare interests, is currently the only person in British politics speaking plainly about NHS dysfunction.
That should terrify you. Not because he’s wrong about BMA leadership behaviour. But because the system is so broken that someone this compromised by donor relationships is still the most honest voice in the room.
That’s not a defence of Streeting. That’s an indictment of everyone else.
British politics has degraded to the point where basic accountability - “own your choices and their consequences” - counts as remarkable honesty. Where union leaders reject offers without consulting members who oppose strikes, and call it democracy. Where £300 million gets burned while people wait in pain, and everyone pretends it’s about principles rather than institutional self-preservation.
What You Should Do.
If you’re a resident doctor: demand your union leadership put the government’s offer to a democratic vote. Your leadership denying you that choice tells you everything about whose interests they’re serving.
If you’re a patient, your cancelled appointment isn’t an unfortunate byproduct. It’s a deliberate choice by union leadership who rejected improvements without consulting members who opposed the strike.
If you’re anyone else: stop accepting political theatre as substance. When politicians occasionally speak plainly, recognise it instead of waiting for the next scandal.
The NHS doesn’t need more strikes. It needs accountability applied equally to union leaders, government ministers, and especially the private interests funding them both.
Listen to the full LBC Radio interview - it’s available on the LBC website and YouTube. Decide for yourself whether political honesty, even when compromised, beats performative sympathy from people who’ll never solve the problems they claim to care about.
Follow The Almighty Gob for more uncomfortable truths about British institutional failure that nobody else will name plainly.
Sources.
All claims verified from: LBC Radio interview (Nov 13, 2024), The Times polling data, NHS Confederation statements, BMA public statements, Good Law Project research on Streeting donations, Electoral Commission records, NHS England statistics.
When I state a fact, it’s verifiable. When I state an opinion, I’m clear about it. That’s the difference between commentary and propaganda.