'A country full of hypocrites!': Caller rages over refusal to raise wages in public service

4 December 2022, 14:15 | Updated: 4 December 2022, 14:28

'A country full of hypocrites': This caller is appalled at the refusal to raise NHS pay

As Tory Chairman says NHS pay rises are "undeliverable" this caller fumes at the UK's "hypocrisy", saying public services are the "backbone" of this country and its workers deserve a "proper wage".

After Tory Chairman Nadhim Zahawi called the NHS's pay rise request "undeliverable", this caller phoned into David Lammy's show to give his take on the matter.

"We're a country full of hypocrites!" began John, from Bethnal Green.

"On a Thursday night, you're clapping for the nurses, doctors and everybody, we can do thirty-seven billion on Test and Trace...we can allow the government to try and borrow fifty billion pounds to give tax cuts to the wealthy but we can't give these people the backbone of the country their right wages?"

John alludes to the unpopular mini-budget announced by Ex-Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng back in September of this year which detailed tax cuts that were said would cost the UK fifty billion pounds to fund.

The caller pointed to other countries where he feels their economic structure works more fairly: "Switzerland and Finland...borrow money to stimulate their economy and growth by pumping it into the system giving everyone a [fair] wage - not blocking the sewage up and letting all the excrement come back on us! [They're] letting it flow, the system flow.

"No, we're too clever for that," he mocked, "the ones at the top are too clever they don't want it to work correctly".

David Lammy interjected: "Why don't they want it to work correctly John?"

"It doesn't suit them! It suited them to borrow fifty billion to have tax cuts but it wouldn't suit them to borrow fifty billion to pump into the system, whilst we have [high] inflation, and give these people a proper wage!" - came John's reply.

He explained that the lack of government funding extends past the NHS as he listed "the railway workers, the nurses, the postal workers".

"You're expecting people at the bottom of the ladder to keep the system, the country going so the ones at the top can live like kings! It's ridiculous!"

David Lammy reacted to the caller's passionate rage: "John I've let you speak because you've put it so coherently."

Nadhim Zahawi says the NHS's pay rise request is 'undeliverable'.