ON SKY NEWS THIS MORNING I heard one of their invited paper reviewers refer to the public sector workers on strike today as ‘the backbone of the country’. I am sure there are many of those on the Left who would welcome these sentiments, and will no doubt toot their horns as they pass a picket line today.
It is a popular myth among such people that those working in the public sector need constant nurturing and displays of our appreciation. Of particular concern in this respect are the nurses and the teachers whose sense of duty and professionalism is exemplary and under- rewarded.
At some time or other in our lives we will receive an education and need medical treatment. Both these professions are still popular with the general public. Our NHS is regarded as ‘the best in the world’, and comprehensive education is the ‘fairest’. Without these branches of the public sector the ship of state would flounder, and illiteracy, innumeracy and disease would flourish – no wonder our paper reviewer described such public services as the backbone of the country.
If those guarding our ports and airports against illegal entrants were removed, we would be plagued by illegal migrants and chaos would reign; if those working in our crematoriums decided to remove their labour, the streets would be knee deep in corpses; if the social security offices and job centres were closed, the streets would be overwhelmed by beggars. If all this was true and not based upon Left-wing sentiment, then we could indeed regard the public sector as the backbone of the nation.
BUT OF COURSE IT IS A MYTH, and one based upon emotion at that. The backbone of this country comprise many millions of workers within the private sector, and the entrepreneurs who create the jobs and the wealth which employs ever more people, who in turn pay their taxes; which allows the government to pay the wages of those in the public sector. Of course those in the public sector also pay taxes; but on the back of those in the private sector. So, who are the real backbone of the country?
The public sector is gradually growing beyond the capacity of the private sector to support it. When Labour came to power in 1997, they poured billions into the NHS on condition that urgent reforms took place. Of these billions some three quarters went on staff pay and conditions, while patient care absorbed what was left. But the so called reforms that were to follow, either never worked, or never happened.
Today we here of incidences of disdain for our elderly on the ward by nurses; we find infection rates increasing; we here of people bringing their own ‘nurses’ on to the ward to help look after their elderly relatives. Today, the nursing profession it seems, no longer make the patient’s bed; they no longer give the bed baths, and they no longer help feed those patients who need it. There is now another layer of people who see to these things. They are a kind of auxiliary body like ‘community policemen’. I have had firsthand experience of these excellent people when hospitalised on several occasions at the James Paget Hospital in Great Yarmouth.
As for the teaching profession, it has gone from bad to worse. The politicians have indeed brought bad practice into the classroom. Today we have hundreds of thousands of young people without work having not had a sufficient education to make them employable. It began in the 1970s when Shirley Williams pioneered comprehensive education that eviscerated excellence and replaced it with equality; and her pioneering work has been added to over the decades following her launching of the system.
Today we have potential employers’ queuing up to complain about educational standards and the pitiful levels of numeracy and literacy. We have university tutors complaining about the standards of numeracy that the education system present them with in higher education.
From what I have just written, you may think I have little time for our teachers. But, on the contrary, they have to deal with such levels of hostility from their pupils without raising a finger; let alone a cane or slipper. To this extent I have a great deal of sympathy for this profession in the modern age. In parts, it has been made one of the dirtiest jobs in the public sector. But even so, the attitude of the teachers to pupil discipline invites their pupils contempt.
IN PRIVATE SECTOR EDUCATION, excellence is paramount. They inspire as well as educate. Their curriculum is more whole and more useful. They are taught by people who believe in a full and rounded education. In such places the much neglected Latin still remains accessible to the pupils up to and including university level; in such places British History continues without interference from politicians of the Left who regard their country’s history as a playing field of colonialism and class warfare.
As Margaret Thatcher proved with her various privatisations, the public sector is not the Holy Grail. Both health and education can be transferred to the private sector. This does not mean that I support such a transference, but merely that I suggest society would continue to function without the state monopoly of these professions.
Our paper reviewer is wholly wrong in his description of the public sector being the backbone of the country. Their contribution may be needed, but it is not vital.
Those going on strike today may have a genuine grievance; but one which those in the private sector have had to come to terms with long ago. The country is besieged by debt and needs to rid itself of it. The private sector has long since rearranged their employees’ pension contributions and it is now up to the state rearrange the public sectors.
Today’s strike is meaningless as far as getting what they want is concerned. Those public sector workers participating in today’s strike will have lost a day’s pay for nothing. Their union bosses, like the Grand Old Duke of York, have led them up to the top of the hill, and will surely lead them down again without any sense of victory.
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