The Guardian view on public sector pay: Labour needs an answer

theguardian.com:

It is perverse, but seemingly true, that Britain’s current industrial disputes over pay and jobs are causing more problems for the Labour opposition than they are for the Conservative government. There was a telling example on Wednesday, when Keir Starmer sacked an obscure junior shadow minister, Sam Tarry, for making media appearances on a rail workers’ picket line. The action generated more heat and headlines than anything triggered by Liz Truss’s belligerent pledge this week to impose new legal restrictions on public sector strike action, or Grant Shapps’ instant plan of 16 different measures that would emasculate unions’ rights to strike at all.

There are several lessons here, but the main one is that the Conservatives are not being held to proper account for the spiralling effects of the squeeze on living standards over which they are presiding. They, not Labour, are the government. They, not Labour, set public sector pay policy. They have the formal power to change public finance rules. They also have the informal authority to bring pressure on the two sides to negotiate a settlement. As guardians of the public interest, if nothing else, the government should also avoid unnecessarily provoking the dispute or becoming a protagonist.

Instead, ministers have gone out of their way to keep the disputes going while doing nothing to resolve them. They have done this for partisan reasons, judging that if the strikes become more bitter, they can turn the issue against Labour, rather than acting as a government representing the public interest for a fair settlement and reliable services. This week’s interventions by Ms Truss are perhaps a grim foretaste of the deliberately divisive way in which she would govern if she wins the