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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
Politics
Mark Steel

'After banning strikes, Government could ban workers from being angry'

The public sector workers who want to protest shouldn’t be allowed to disrupt our lives by going on strike.

Instead, they should do it in ways that aren’t so annoying, such as going to work without combing their hair.

That’s why their strikes are to be made illegal, although they will still be permitted to express their annoyance, by going into the work canteen once a month and sighing.

Another problem that’s wrecking our services is that so many people in these jobs leave. For example, nurses say they can earn more money working in a supermarket. So this should be made illegal as well.

If a nurse gets a job in Asda, they should have to carry on giving patients bed baths while they’re at the checkout.

Then we should take away the right for public service workers to be sick or to die. Just because a train driver has been cremated, there’s no reason why their coffin can’t be propped up in the front of a train to make sure the public can still get the 7.55 to Bristol Parkway.

Striking South East Coast Ambulance Service workers (Adam Gerrard / Daily Mirror)

This Government has many other plans to improve efficiency.

Soon, nurses will have to bring in their own beds to save the NHS having to fork out for them.

Patients having transplants will be asked to perform the operation ­themselves, and they’ll be able to order the organs online.

So you’ll get a liver from Amazon, who will leave it under a flowerpot if you’re not in to take delivery of it. The ambulance service will be sold to Uber so, if you have a heart attack, you’ll type in the postcode of the hospital, then wait until you get a message saying: “Ambulance has arrived.”

But you won’t be able to find it so you’ll call the driver and say: “Where are you?” and they’ll say: “I am by Primark. It’s next to Burger King.” And if you don’t get there in the next two minutes they’ll drive off because they’ve got a better job from a woman who’s had a stroke.

If there are no beds available, patients will be transferred to their local branch of B&Q, as many of the tools needed for minor operations are the same as those used in home improvement.

You’ll call your dad after he’s had his gallstones removed, and he’ll say: “It was quite painful, as a 19-year-old pulled them out with a ratchet spanner in between selling light fittings.”

Ambulance workers and paramedic staff take industrial strike action (Julian Hamilton/Daily Mirror)

Eventually a law can be introduced that solves the problem of angry public service workers wanting to go on strike.

It will become illegal for them to even become angry.

The police will be sent into hospitals and fire stations to check everyone’s complying with the law by being cheerful. Nurses will all have to sing: “I’ve got three million tasks and no protective masks but I’m happy.”

The problem will be there aren’t any police to enforce this as they’ve all left as well… but we’ll deal with that another time.

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