Will the junior doctors regret picking a fight with Wes?
Coffee House Shots
The Spectator
4.4 • 2.1K Ratings
🗓️ 31 July 2025
⏱️ 14 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The dispute between the British Medical Association (BMA) – a trade union for doctors – and the government continues, following the five-day strike by junior doctors. Doctors argue that pay is still far below relative levels from almost two decades ago, combined with the cost of study, the cost of living and housing crises, as well as challenging conditions within the NHS. Nevertheless, with an average pay rise of 5.4% for resident doctors this year, support for the strikes appears to be falling – both with the public at large, and within the BMA. Health Secretary Wes Streeting has hit back at the BMA and said they 'will not win a war with this government'.
Tim Shipman and Lucy Dunn join Natasha Feroze to discuss whether the junior doctors are wise to pick a fight with Wes. First though they talk about the fallout from Keir Starmer's announcement of that the UK could recognise Palestinian statehood in September. Given the recognition is conditional, is Starmer's position the worst of both worlds?
Produced by Patrick Gibbons and Natasha Feroze.
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Transcript
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| 0:54.0 | Hello and welcome to Coffee House Shots, The Spectators' Daily Politics Podcast. I'm Natasha |
| 0:59.8 | Froes and I'm joined by Tim Shipman and Lucy Dunn. Now, Kistama has been widely criticised |
| 1:05.9 | for his announcement on Tuesday where he said that the UK will recognise a Palestinian state unless there is a two-state |
| 1:12.7 | solution. Now, Tim, there have been several different criticisms towards this announcement. |
| 1:19.0 | Today, it's been said that this could actually breach international law. So could you just take |
| 1:24.7 | us through how much this is snowballing into a massive problem for Kirstama |
| 1:29.2 | and whether he might actually you turn on it again? |
| 1:32.2 | Well, look, I think this came about because Kirstama was under huge amount of pressure from his own MPs |
| 1:37.4 | to do something, anything about the situation in Gaza. |
| 1:42.1 | There was a humanitarian dimension to that, but also a political one. And |
| 1:46.1 | more than 200 Labour MPs said, we want a Palestinian state now. Stahmer's been under pressure |
... |
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