DAILY MAIL COMMENT: Strike waste in our bloated NHS

There’s never a good time to get sick. But as the country braces for the biggest wave of NHS strikes ever, this week is a particularly bad one.

Nurses, paramedics and ambulance drivers go off to meet astronomical and unrealistic salary demands.

Thousands of surgeries are being cancelled, leaving people in pain longer while lives are put at risk when sick and injured patients cannot get to hospital.

Those who go on strike should ask themselves who pays their wages. It’s not the government, it’s hard-pressed taxpayers.

It’s not like the NHS is being done hard. Real record sums were pumped in by the Tories.

DAILY MAIL COMMENT: Nurses, paramedics and ambulance drivers go out to meet astronomical and unrealistic wage demands

But as we reveal, healthcare bosses spent a staggering £144million on private ambulances and patient taxis last year.

This is on top of the untold millions the giant spends on “woke” non-jobs – including diversity and inclusion managers – and compensation.

Perhaps there would be more money for raises if the NHS weren’t so wasteful.

Teachers need answers

How telling that support for her and Scottish independence has plummeted after the transgender prisoner dispute ripped a hole in the logic of Nicola Sturgeon’s shambolic gender reforms.

The public, unlike the SNP and Labour, is concerned that self-identification puts women and girls at risk from predatory men.

So this is the perfect moment for the government to reiterate that there is no legal obligation for teachers to refer to children who claim to be trans by their “preferred” pronouns, to let them use toilets and changing rooms that are reserved for the opposite sex, or to keep their parents in the dark.

Whatever militant activists may claim, this position — set out last year by then-Attorney General Suella Braverman — is not transphobic. It’s a basic security.

But Education Secretary Gillian Keegan, who says 16-year-olds are mature enough to choose their own gender, is reluctant to release official guidance.

This tremor is bad for teachers, bad for parents – and bad for students.

DAILY MAIL COMMENT: How revealing that after the transgender prisoner feud tore a hole in the logic of Nicola Sturgeon’s shambolic gender reforms

defy conventions

After the Nazi horrors of World War II, the European Convention on Human Rights was created with the noblest of intentions.

But the world has changed, and today exploitation of this outdated body of law is one reason it is so difficult to deport migrants who come here illegally.

It is therefore heartening to learn that Rishi Sunak is ready to remove Britain from the charter if European judges continue to thwart his plans to drastically tighten Britain’s asylum laws.

With a record 65,000 people set to cross the Channel illegally in small boats this year, he hopes draconian legislation can end the scandal.

But the European courts have already delayed the Rwanda program – and activists will surely demand that they interfere again.

Voters overwhelmingly want the PM to solve the refugee crisis. If getting out of the convention is the only way, he may have to face the screeching human rights lobby and do it.

• Jeremy Hunt’s failure to restore duty-free shopping for overseas visitors isn’t just driving shoppers off our shores – luxury brands are also diverting investment from the UK to flagship stores abroad. The Chancellor aims to raise £2billion, but that would be dwarfed by the revenue that will not only be lost on shopping and other spending as travelers go elsewhere, but also as fewer jobs will be created. Ministers want Britain to become a holiday paradise. Instead, this tourist tax drives wealthy shoppers and retailers into the arms of Europe.