The UK Is Officially Heading Into A "Winter Of Discontent"

Older readers may recall the crippling British labor strikes in 1978-1979 which ultimately helped usher in the late Margaret Thatcher’s historic tenure at Ten Downing Street as Great Britain’s Prime Minister, and how the media of the time referred to the situation as Great Britain’s “Winter Of Discontent”.

A month of speculation over whether Great Britain would endure a second “Winter of Discontent” is now over, with the question being answered in the affirmative. The answer was delivered by the nurses in the National Health Service voting to go on strike before Christmas.

The biggest nursing strike in NHS history is set to take place before Christmas after union officials said that “large swathes of the country” had voted for industrial action.

Patients who are already facing record waiting lists are now likely to see operations and appointments delayed or cancelled. This is set to be the first national strike in the history of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN).

One union source said this weekend: “This will see the majority of services taken out, and picket lines across the country.”

Nor is it just nurses. 155,000 postal workers are already conducting up to 19 days of strikes, and the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers has been conduction a series of strikes which could go on “indefinitely.

In all, as many as two million UK workers are or are about to go on strike across Great Britain.

The Winter of Discontent has arrived.