Are we facing an 'autumn of discontent'?

Summer is coming to an end and those of us in the UK have more than just Halloween and pumpkin lattes on the horizon, according to pundits and politicians who are predicting an "autumn of discontent".

Widespread strikes and the government's economic challenges could bring echoes of the "winter of discontent" of 1978-79 that helped bring down the Labour government and usher Margaret Thatcher into power.

What did the commentators say?

Britain is set for "an autumn of discontent with strikes set to disrupt crucial services across the country", said Gareth Corfield and Amy Gibbons in The Telegraph.

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The RMT's strike on the London Underground will come "just as schools return" and could be followed by "months of walkouts across the public sector", with GPs, junior doctors and nurses possibly striking during winter months, the health service's "busiest time of year".

The "discontent has hit other sectors", said Francine Wolfisz in the Daily Mail, and "bin collectors in London" could follow the example of their colleagues in Birmingham, "where a five-month walkout is set to continue until Christmas". Britain is facing strike "hell", said Dan McDonald on GB News, as unions "threaten to cripple Britain" with fresh walkouts.

After a "short summer lull, those tensions may break out into open conflict" due to new laws set to "come into force in the autumn giving unions new powers", said Richard Tyler in The Times. Companies are also feeling the pinch, with fresh job cuts as the £25 billion a year rise in national insurance is beginning to bite.

With "economic growth flatlining and inflation remaining stubbornly high, the chasm between the priorities for business owners and unions appears wide. Government ministers are stuck in the middle, making neither side happy".

"Just how thick are the public sector unions?" said Ross Clark in The Spectator in August 2024, following Labour's election victory. After 14 years "trying to get rid of a Conservative government" they have been given "substantial pay rises" and "new workers' rights" by the new government, yet they still "threaten to re-enact the 1979 winter of discontent" that ended Labour rule and prompted 18 years of Tory power.

As summer draws to a close and "cooler evenings and longer shadows" take over, said Kemi Badenoch in The Telegraph, "the signs are already pointing to an autumn of discontent" thanks to "Labour’s tax-and-spend madness".

The Conservative leader says we have failed to learn from previous lessons. Following the winter of discontent and the financial crisis of 2008, it was left to her party to "steady the ship, restore confidence, and lay the groundwork for recovery".

What next?

Keir Starmer will launch an autumn fightback against Nigel Farage’s claim that "Britain is broken".

"It’ll be about how the government is a force for good backing Britain, dismissing this sense of Britain being broken, which the other parties seem obsessed with," a No.10 source told HuffPost UK .

But the fact Chancellor Rachel Reeves has spent "the summer touring the country showing off the fruits of £100 billion in new capital spending", said Patrick Maguire in The Times, tells you "just how urgently ministers want to prove this government is doing more than alienating voters".