Starmer’s threat to resident doctors is a grave mistake | Letters

Dr Mussaddaq Iqbal responds to the news that the prime minister has warned medics to call off their strike or lose a training offer

While I totally disapprove, as I did last time, of the doctors’ strike but completely support their demands and grievances, it is the prime minister’s response which has made me write this letter (Keir Starmer gives resident doctors 48 hours to call off strike or lose training offer, 31 March). His threat of not creating extra training posts is shocking, inappropriate and impulsive. Though on the face of it it sounds like an innocuous response showing irritation, it is probably the most convincing evidence so far of his unfitness to govern among the litany of his other missteps.

It has laid bare his government’s lack of strategy and lack of sincerity. Does he understand that, by not creating training posts, he is not only going to harm doctors’ careers, spoil thousands of young doctors’ lives and deter others from adopting this noble and vital profession, but also harm the NHS, and thus patient care? The NHS is desperately understaffed. This shows that he never had any plan to increase the number of posts and it was agreed under pressure. He is clearly not a statesman, and if he is only capable of responding in this childlike manner, he could have threatened to freeze their pay or any such lowly response, but not one that is harmful.