JUST when you thought Tories couldn't get any more ridiculous, along comes Tory chairman, Nadhim Zahawi, telling a bemused Sophy Ridge that nurses and ambulance drivers demanding pay rises were helping Vladimir Putin in his assault on Ukraine. Whaaat?
Who knew that the madman directing war on Ukraine's people, has also been keeping a careful eye on the worsening labour relations in the National Health Service?
But according to Zahawi – the millionaire minister who once had to apologise for claiming taxpayers' money to heat his stables – the health workers should call off their strikes and abandon their pay demands because it risked playing into the hands of the Russian president who he said wanted to fuel inflation in the west.
The Royal College of Nursing says recent analysis indicated that nurses were effectively working one out of every five days for free, because of a decade of real terms pay cuts. Now staff are struggling to pay food and energy bills. But I'm sure now that they've recognised their previously unknown role in brokering world peace, they'll surely think again.
The nurses are only the latest in a string of industrial disputes now combining to give the tabloids a chance to dust down their 'winter of discontent' headlines as railway workers, postal staff, college lecturers, airport ground handlers and others take industrial action in pursuit of better pay and conditions.
But this time around, the public aren't buying the 'evil union barons holding the country to ransom' narrative. Instead they look at the continuing deterioration in underfunded public services, a decrease in living standards and a steady growth in the use of foodbanks by people who are in work, and they think it's time people were paid a decent wage.
They might also look at the party in government and its greed, showering peerages and lucrative PPE contracts on cronies and think, not before time, that enough is enough.
****
THE latest instalment of Harry and Meghan's woes, aka The House of Whinger, looks set to dominate the headlines just as King Charles is writing up his first Christmas message... hopefully he's got a decent fountain pen this time.
He'll probably not mention former lady-in-waiting, Lady Susan Hussey and her Paxmanesque quest to discover the ethnic background of a black charity boss. And he'll probably not mention his younger son and daughter-in-law's complaints about media intrusion in their six-part Netflix documentary.
There have already been complaints about its scenes of media crushes with jostling photographers and camera crews, purporting to show the couple being harassed. Except that one of them turns out to be the scrum surrounding Katie Price as she left court following a drink driving charge. Another was the premiere of Harry Potter...
In the voiceover Prince Harry says the family is "hierarchical". Er... yes, it is a hereditary monarchy where the first-born inherits the throne. Had he never noticed this before?
The more excitable papers are describing it as a "declaration of war against the Royal family", but it is disturbing that so many see it as a feud between the two women – Kate and Meghan - because, as we all know, women can't possibly get along without bitchy rivalry intervening.
This tired trope was also wheeled out in the obituaries for Fleetwood Mac's peerless Christine McVie, which recounted how there was initial concern when guitarist Lindsey Buckingham was invited to join the band, but was insisting his girlfriend, singer Stevie Nicks, came too.
How would Christine react to another woman? Guess what, they got on like a house on fire, mutually respecting the other's unique qualities and supreme musicianship. It happens.
Though I did wonder if the lack of drama in the movie She Said – the true account of the two New York Times journalists who exposed the predatory behaviour of Harvey Weinstein - was partly because they were two women reporters.
There were no conflict of egos, no stand-up rows over the direction of the story, just quiet supportiveness and collegiality.
It was so right-on, there wasn't even a murmur that Mom was spending too much time at the office from their endlessly supportive children and spouses. Even the newspaper's woman editor never complained once that they were spending too much time without getting results. Instead she dispensed back rubs and an occasional sisterly hug.
It wasn't All the President's Men but was still worth the watch - and a better story than Harry and Meghan's.
