06 September 2023 , 23:01
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Out-of-touch Rishi Sunak won't fix the problems gripping the country as he's cut off from the realities facing ordinary Brits, a top union leader has said.
TUC General Secretary Paul Nowak said the mega-rich PM had lost sight of people's priorities because he isn't forced to send his kids to crumbling schools or use the struggling rail network. Speaking to the Mirror ahead of the annual union gathering in Liverpool this weekend, Mr Nowak said: "If you look at what’s just happened in our schools with reinforced concrete. We’ve got a Prime Minister who doesn't send his kids to the state schools. He doesn't go to our NHS hospitals. He doesn't travel by train because he gets a private helicopter everywhere.
"This is a cabinet of millionaires that are disconnected from the stuff that really matters to ordinary working people, their families and communities. And you can see it - there isn't one aspect of our public life or public realm that's better now than it was 13 years ago and I think that's a shocking indictment of the Government."
(Ian Vogler / Daily Mirror)Amid ongoing doctors' strikes, he accused ministers of being "indifferent" to the crisis gripping the NHS crisis as they aren't queuing for GPs or waiting in A&E for treatment. “Refusing to engage with the BMA is not going to resolve those issues" with staffing and pay, he said. "You've got a Government that in some way seems indifferent to it because, frankly, they're not the ones on the waiting lists."
Mr Nowak accused ministers of deploying "a macho style of management" rather than getting round the table with unions to resolve strikes. "No employer in the private sector would still be in dispute more than a year later, like this government effectively still is with rail unions and in the NHS," he said.
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He said a Labour Government could end the wave of strikes that has gripped the country but admitted it wouldn't be easy. "I don't think you can promise that there will never be tensions between a Labour government and unions," he said. "But what I think you can say is the starting point would be very different."
However Mr Nowak joked he was ready for beer and sandwiches in No10 if Labour did win the next election. He said: “I don't think you can take anything for granted and I don't think you can say the election is in the bag. But I think that prospect of a Labour Government is one that will give hope to millions of people up and down the country."
Mr Nowak warned the Tories will "play a dirty election campaign" about migration, culture wars, trans rights and unions as they have "run out of ideas". But he added: "I don't think any of that will fly because I think at the end of the day, people will ask themselves before that election, 'do I feel better off now than I did 13 years ago?' For most people that the answer will be a resounding no."
The TUC leader also vowed to fight the Government's draconian anti-strike legislation in the courts if necessary, saying: "We're not going to stand by and let the Government sack a single nurse, a single rail worker. We'll stand by any member who finds themselves on the wrong side of the law because no one should lose their job for exercising the right to strike."
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