Those poor nurses

[Borchester]

The govt missed a trick.
Like bouquets of flowers, photographs, ribbons, and ghost bikes at the scene of a road fatality, the public loves a visible gesture. So rather than a measly 1%, there could have been a £1000 tax free bonus awarded to all frontline NHS staff. Perhaps given half in the summer and half at Christmas, it would have cost around £1.5 billion — and put against the £355 billion of borrowings this financial year, it could actually cost less than 1% pay rise. HMRC and DWP claw backs from "mistaken" claims under the various Covid support schemes could kick in too...

Actually I don't. To my way of thinking the only road users without insurance and licenses are cyclists and pedestrians. Sod them. And if the local ghouls are going to tie bunches of flowers to railings can they at least take the wrapping off? Otherwise the flowers wither and turn brown and look like something out of a Hammer Horror movie but without Peter Cushing to give it a bit of sardonic humour.

[Nick]

This is the usual claptrap, nurses haven't had a decent pay rise Blah blah blah. But the different between this type of employment and normal employment is that there are regular pay grade increases that no one ever mentions. These grade increases seem to be every couple of years and represent roughly an 8% increase, 4% PA plus the 1% doesn't seem too bad to me.

[patman post]

The govt missed a trick.
Like bouquets of flowers, photographs, ribbons, and ghost bikes at the scene of a road fatality, the public loves a visible gesture. So rather than a measly 1%, there could have been a £1000 tax free bonus awarded to all frontline NHS staff. Perhaps given half in the summer and half at Christmas, it would have cost around £1.5 billion — and put against the £355 billion of borrowings this financial year, it could actually cost less than 1% pay rise. HMRC and DWP claw backs from "mistaken" claims under the various Covid support schemes could kick in too...

[Javert]

I suspect this is a PR stunt.

From what I can see, the normal assumption in politics has been that making U turns and changes in response to bad newspaper headlines was considered as a weakness.

However, I think that acctually  this government considers it as a policy tool.

They knew that whatever pay rise was proposed for nurses, unless it was 20% or above, would be said to be "derisory and not enough".  Therefore they have published a very low number knowing full well they would be forced into a U turn no matter what they did.

Therefore now they can come out with 2% and it looks generous.

[Barry]

Throughout this crisis in the NHS the nurses have been given free food, free shopping, free parking, free phone data, first in the shops queue, as much overtime as they could handle...
The rest of the country have been furloughed, businesses decimated, mental health badly affected whilst we support the NHS.
The NHS and nurses and doctors are not gods. Let's stop pretending they are.

[Streetwalker]

Tory party have missed an own goal with this . Even a little more of what was expected (which I heard was 2.5%) would have been a public relations success which lets be honest they are in great need of .

[Sheepy]

A 1% pay rise, this will cause the working class to be up in arms after covid and all they did, the middle classes will be besides themselves, strikes will be called and the media will be in a frenzy, ah but then, if only they had a clue how the Westminster party works, wait for it, what they really want will come off the back of it.