The Guardian view on the government’s problems: time for intelligent compromise
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Version 0 of 1. For a man who’s often considered a shrewd politician, David Cameron lets his government slide into an extraordinary number of damaging and unnecessary conflicts. On Monday he will risk a defeat in the Commons on a Lords amendment to the immigration bill to allow an extra 3,000 unaccompanied child migrants come to the UK from Europe. This proposal is so obviously the right thing to do that many government loyalists will oppose it only with deep unease. And between 8am and 5pm on Tuesday and Wednesday, exasperated junior doctors will strike, withdrawing even emergency cover for the first time in history, an event that could well damage themselves, the government and, most of all, the very people that everyone insists they want to do their utmost to protect: the patients. In both these cases, there is a way out. Yet ministers appear to cling to the jaded idea that the country still yearns for what was once known as the smack of firm government. On Saturday, the health secretary Jeremy Hunt wrote to the BMA suggesting they call off the strike and return to the negotiating table to talk – but not about the thing that has most enraged the doctors: Mr Hunt’s decision to impose the new seven-day working contract. Then a cross-party group of MPs, including both the former Tory health minister Dr Dan Poulter and the shadow health secretary, Heidi Alexander, wrote to Mr Hunt suggesting he phase the introduction of the new contract to allow for independent assessment of his disputed claim that the contract really will deliver a seven-day NHS, fewer deaths and better outcomes. The health secretary dismissed the letter as a stunt, a response that was arrogant and high-handed; he sounded like a cornered man desperate not to lose face. The doctors do not have all the best arguments. But the BMA backed the cross-party initiative for a phased introduction of the contract as a base from which progress could be made. As we report elsewhere, the doctors still overwhelmingly support the action, and so far the public still seems to be on their side. Make no mistake: the action will have very serious consequences. Larger hospitals may be able to shift staff around to keep accident and emergency departments functioning more or less adequately. Smaller ones may not. Most non-urgent cases – and that covers thousands of people, many of whom will be in pain, some of whom are seriously ill – will simply have to wait and hope. The doctors themselves acknowledge that they risk jeopardising the most precious asset they have – their patients’ trust. The government needs to talk to the doctors. On the question of unaccompanied child migrants, it needs to listen to its critics. Britain’s refugee policy has been scarred by an accountant’s approach to human misery. Last Wednesday, the immigration minister James Brokenshire, alarmed by the overwhelming backing in the Lords last month for a commitment to bring in children from Europe, announced instead a scheme to take 3,000 child refugees direct from camps in the Middle East. That is a good and worthwhile project, but it is not nearly enough, even though it seems to have persuaded most of the Tory rebels for the government to avoid defeat on Monday’s vote. This does not square with figures from aid agencies suggesting that up to 25,000 children reached Europe on their own last year. Many of them, lost in strange lands, will be extremely vulnerable to exploitation by sex and drug traffickers. Each and every one is entitled to help and protection. The Home Office warns that because of family reunification rules, taking in children will merely lead to more being sent ahead to facilitate their parents’ entry into Britain. That sounds unlikely and is impossible to prove – and anyway, it should not be used as an excuse to evade our responsibilities. In the first instance, Britain should get a grip on the processing of unaccompanied children in camps on the French side of the Channel who can legally join family in the UK. Right now, only a shameful three or four a week are making it, even though – on estimates from a group of agencies including Save the Children and Citizens UK – there are 157, some as young as 10, entitled to be in Britain. At this rate, it will take a year to reunite them with their families. Good government is rarely a matter of waiting to see who blinks first, not with a working majority of just 18, and above all not when there is a referendum on a matter of historic importance to be won. From child migrants to the doctors’ dispute, principled compromise should be the mantra of the shrewd politician. |