Nurses in England are on weaker ground with new strikes – and ministers know it

Steve Barclay and Rishi Sunak are gambling that nurses' appetite for a fight is waning - and ballot results back them up

Everyone loves nurses, don't they? They are near the top of the list of the nation's most admired and trusted workers. They inspired a TV drama called Angels. And when they were striking in December, January and February, they were the NHS staff group that the health secretary, Steve Barclay, most wanted to make peace with.

But since the Royal College of Nursing decided to launch a new series of strikes in England after its members rejected a pay deal their leadership had recommended, the government is playing hardball with the union. Rishi Sunak and Barclay plan to make no new improved offer to either NHS nurses or junior doctors, whose four-day strike ended last Saturday and led to 195,000 cancellations.