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The chairman of the British conservatives has drawn widespread mockery after claiming that nurses going on strike in the UK is “exactly what Putin wants to see.”
Speaking to British state media Sunday, Conservative party chairman Nadhim Zahawi condemned the UK’s nurses for considering going on strike and attempted to link their negotiating tactics to both the holiday seasons and NATO’s ongoing proxy war against Russia in Ukraine.
“Coming up to Christmas it’s unfair, in my view, for the unions to really damage and disrupt people’s lives and livelihoods,” Zahawi said. “They should really rethink and they should reflect on this. That’s exactly what Putin wants to see - that division. Let’s not divide, let’s come together.”
“Putin Derangement Syndrome is getting out of control,” observed Nick Cruse, the co-founder of Revolutionary Blackout Network in response to the chairman's statement.
“Everyone knows, of course, that Putin is watching UK nurse pay very closely,” cackled Scottish Member of Parliament John Nicolson.
“If you listened to the UK government today you’d think that if Ukraine loses its war with Russia it will be the fault of British nurses asking for inflation matching pay rises,” observed political economist Richard Murphy. “It’s very hard to make up stupidity on this scale.”
Organizations representing those workers reacted with outrage to the Conservative chairman’s remarks. Pat Cullen, general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, called Zahawi’s comments “a new low for this government.”
With inflation in the UK currently sitting at 14%, purchasing power has been severely impacted for workers across the British economy. But salaries for nurses in the UK have failed to keep up for over a decade, and they say their pay has effectively decreased by 20% since 2010.
Nurses in the UK are attempting to rectify years of diminishing real-term wages by locking in an increase in pay that goes 5% above inflation, and are threatening to go on strike on December 15 and 20 if the government doesn’t play ball.
During the strikes, nurses say crucial services including chemotherapy and dialysis---and critical care units such as intensive care and neonatal and pediatric intensive care---will be unaffected.