Great Britain: A country is on the brink of collapse
Created: 01/10/2023 12:53 p.m
Britain's infrastructure is collapsing - effects of Brexit, the pandemic and the Tory government.
London - Rishi Sunak actually wanted to talk about the lack of math skills among British youth.
But for the Prime Minister, who has been in office since the end of October, the main concern at the beginning of the year is the authority of his conservative government: the series of strikes in the public sector does not end, the conditions in the NHS health care system have the character of an emergency, as
fr.de
writes.
In one of his rare public appearances, the head of government was tough on Wednesday: No concessions to the strikers.
The railroad strike, which has been going on for months, has severely hampered the return of the people to their jobs after the holidays.
Only 20 percent of the planned trains ran on Tuesday (January 3).
The association of private railway operators had already asked in advance not to even try a trip.
Parts of the British population are thoroughly fed up with the Conservative power games.
© AFP
Great Britain: Now hard savings should be made
The unions RMT for train attendants and cleaning staff and ASLEF for the train drivers are demanding greater job security and double-digit wage increases to compensate for the significant rise in prices.
According to the statistics agency ONS, this was 10.7 percent in November;
Food prices rose 16.6 percent.
Employers are offering 4.5 percent each for the next two years.
For months, RMT boss Mick Lynch has been calling for direct negotiations with the government because it has financially tied the hands of the train industry and the semi-state infrastructure company Network Rail.
Transport Minister Mark Harper confirms this indirectly: “Taxpayers’ money is not unlimited.” During the pandemic, the state had to inject billions into privatized companies to keep the system running.
Why should now be saved hard.
As a result of the dispute, customers are migrating en masse: the used car industry is reporting massive demand, with more than half of people citing “increasingly unreliable public transport” as the reason.
Postmen, university lecturers and border guards are now also on strike for more money.
A particular headache for Sunak is the strike in the national health service NHS.
Because the employees there, who only want to go on strike again in the middle of the month, enjoy the support of the majority of the population.
The tabloid Mirror on Wednesday featured the five Tory prime ministers since 2010 with the headline: "They've ruined our NHS." Quite a few on the island have seen it that way for a very long time.
Longstanding failure in the UK
Health Minister Steve Barclay undauntedly blames Covid for the devastatingly long waiting times for ambulances everywhere, but also for routine appointments in surgeries.
Medicine, on the other hand, points to long-term developments: too little prevention, not enough hospital beds, too few places in old people's and nursing homes.
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A Downing Street spokesman had to admit before Sunak's speech: Many people were having "great difficulties" in being treated this winter.
Family doctor appointments are treated like gold dust.
The warning from a control center during the most recent strike before Christmas made clear how bad the situation is with regard to first aid: "Only call the emergency number if you think you are going to die."
Even on normal days, anyone who has suffered a heart attack or stroke has to be patient for an average of 60 minutes;
in rural areas it can take an hour and a half for first aid to arrive.
Apart from Sweden, the Kingdom has the lowest number of hospital beds in Europe, with just over two per 1000 only a third of the stock in Germany.
In addition, many beds are occupied by older people whose release fails due to the lack of places in homes.
Adrian Boyle of the Emergency Medicine Professional Association estimates that up to 25,000 people die every year because they don't get help in a timely manner.
There is no sign of a quick improvement, and hundreds of thousands of jobs in the healthcare sector are unfilled.
Because Brexit is making it more difficult to recruit European specialists, advertising campaigns are now running in Africa, for example - where the conservatives are having migrants deported again.
(Sebastian Borger/FR)
