UK government needs long-term plan for higher wages, not a fight with workers | Richard Partington

While Boris Johnson plays politics, Britain's public sector is fraying at the seams

Everywhere we look, the fabric of Britain is fraying at the seams. Strikes on the railways, airports in chaos, severe staff shortages, soaring prices for petrol and food, the biggest fall in living standards since the 1950s.

With the biggest industrial dispute on the rail network in three decades due to begin this week, battle lines are drawn. Alongside the succession of shocks caused by the Covid pandemic and Russia's war in Ukraine, Boris Johnson's government will add another culprit for our palpable sense of national decline: workers.