Sir Keir Starmer rightly says we can’t give unions bumper pay rises – he must hold that line

Do not buckle

A LABOUR Government would ordinarily be a dream come true for the militant unions.

They must have thought it was Christmas come early last Friday.

So we are pleased to hear Keir Starmer insist he won’t capitulate to their demands for the bumper pay rises they were clearly expecting their political bedfellows to rubber-stamp.

As the PM rightly says, we can’t afford it.

And he must hold that line.

The Tories got inflation back down to just two per cent.

Britain cannot now hand the already bloated public sector inflation-busting wage deals.

Health Secretary Wes Streeting, too, must not budge over his refusal to give junior doctors the preposterous 35 per cent hike their BMA union seeks to reverse pay erosion from the 2008 financial crisis, austerity, Covid and war — which afflicted everyone in Britain.

And this will then present quite a test for the unions.

Are they prepared to hammer Labour with the same ceaseless, crippling strikes they inflicted on the Tories?

If not, it will prove that those walkouts were nothing but a political campaign using the public — even sick and dying NHS patients — as cannon fodder.

Water torture

WHY should customers pay a penny more to bail out the failure and greed of the water giants?

And why did the industry’s feeble ­regulator Ofwat cave in to its demands for more money?

For years these firms have paid failing executives mind-boggling salaries and shareholders bumper dividends while pumping filth into our rivers and failing to stop oceans of water leaking from decrepit pipes into the ground.

Households already pay top dollar for the most basic service.

They have a right to expect suppliers to fund repairs and new reservoirs from that income while slashing the amount they pollute.

Instead Ofwat thinks it’s done us all a favour by not giving them everything they wanted.

We don’t agree with those who want the industry nationalised.

That’s a recipe for even more failure and lack of investment.

But too many of our water firms are palpably not fit for purpose.

And nor is the watchdog supposedly in existence to protect customers.

Bank olé-day

WISE words from 1966 hat-trick hero Sir Geoff Hurst.

Not just his prediction that England will beat Spain and lift the Euros trophy on Sunday.

Also his belief that we should get a bank holiday to celebrate.

We agree.

Indeed we might as well hold it the next day.

Half of Britain won’t be fit for work anyway.