Leaked messages from the organisations behind the long-running junior doctor’s strikes indicate that they were just pretending to want to “save the NHS” when all they really wanted was more money from it.

The chairman of their junior doctor’s committee Johan Malawana proposed “a strategy that tied the DH up in knots for the next 16-18 months” and, during talks with arbitrators Acas that the doctors should not get “too concerned in the Acas rubbish. We need to play the political game of always looking reasonable”.

The British Medical Association, which many would expect to know better, was revealed as cynically wanting the government to impose a seven day contract on doctors in the hope that this would win their members sympathy and support from the public for their striking for more money.