Labour have caved in to greed over junior doctors pay rise - John McLellan

Chancellor Rachel Reeves has announced the means-testing of winter fuel payments to pensioners

But it has indeed become a brat summer, and not just hysterical Just Stop Oil children trying to stop hard-working people flying off for a well-earned break. It’s the summer of brat success in the shape of junior doctors being rewarded for their politically motivated campaign for better pay by bringing the NHS to its knees.

These are some of the best educated people in the country, always top of the class through school and now highly qualified with the world at their feet. Yes, they work hard, and the hours are long, but with skills and knowledge which will always be in demand, their future could not be brighter.

For the last couple of years, the justified rejection of a ludicrous 35 per cent pay demand was an excuse for repeated strike action in England and Wales. Purporting to be about protecting the NHS, it created record waiting times for nearly eight million patients, despite the number of doctors rising 26 per cent and nurses 24 per cent in the five years to March.

It was never about the NHS but about improving already healthy wages and bringing down the Conservative government. Despite an 8.8 per cent award last year, they were striking right up to election day.

“If we can't afford it, we won't do it,” said Chancellor Rachel Reeves repeatedly this week, but despite complaining about an apparently unexpected £22bn black hole in government finances, she was able to afford a 22 per cent pay increase for junior doctors, justified by what she said was the £1.7bn cost of their industrial action.

The message is clear; wreak havoc, put people’s lives at risk, extend patients’ agony as their operations are postponed, cost the NHS you say you love millions of pounds, and your reward will be a whopping pay rise.

Having settled for a 12.4 per cent rise last year, Scottish junior doctors now have a clear target it will be very hard for the Scottish Government to ignore.

Indeed, Ms Reeves has set the same bar for all public sector workers, and the Royal College of Nurses has already signalled its expectation of a similar offer for its members.

Having just tabled a bill to nationalise train operators – a parliamentary posture because, like the Scottish Government and ScotRail, all they need do is not renew the franchises – it’s only a matter of time before the rail unions follow suit.

And why not? If £1.7bn cost to the NHS justifies the doctors’ award, then it’s dwarfed by the £3.5bn hit the hospitality sector alone claims it suffered from rail strikes up to September last year.

Despite her protestations, the public sector pay offers Ms Reeves has chosen to make account for £9.4bn of the £22bn shortfall, and the price of her generosity includes the axe on pensioners’ winter fuel allowances.

If all new governments benefit from a honeymoon period, most get longer than four weeks, and the "brat summer" is supposed to be about numbing anxiety with a party, not a party numbing us with anxiety.