Rishi Sunak right to take a stand against unrealistic doctors' strike demands: Sarah Todd

Economics isn’t this writer’s area of expertise, but it’s not rocket science that if the country keeps paying out money it doesn’t actually have in its coffers we’ll never see the back of high inflation.

The junior doctors planned strike for five days from July 13th will be the longest single period of industrial action in the history of the health service and comes off the back of three previous rounds of industrial action.

The British Medical Association is seeking a 35 per cent - how much? - pay rise, saying this will put right a real-terms fall in income since 2008.

There seems something fundamentally wrong with such obviously unaffordable demands. In the private sector, demanding daft amounts of extra money would simply mean the work dries up. It’s just the way it is. If those paying the fees don’t have it, there’s no point asking for it.

It’s all well and good Labour putting the pressure on the government, saying it needs to resolve industrial disputes, but money doesn’t grow on those aforementioned trees.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak needs to toughen up and block bonkers pay rises.

Thankfully, just this week, he has finally plucked up courage to condemn the doctors’ strikes as ‘completely unreasonable’.

He has also forewarned that people may not like the decisions he plans to take over pay disputes. Maybe even going against the advice of pay review bodies, saying his decisions will be the “right and responsible” ones. So they should be.

Politics shouldn’t be a popularity contest. It should always be about doing the right and responsible thing. Spending money that the country doesn’t have is neither of these things.

It also sends the wrong message to the general public. When we, as a family, can’t afford something we don’t buy it. Full stop.

This isn’t the norm anymore. People’s buying on the credit of “never never” as my late grandmother used to call it has escalated to ridiculous levels. Sometimes it seems that nobody, apart from this correspondent in her trusty old 2006 model, drives an older car. Time and again she’s the oldest vehicle in the supermarket carpark but she does her job and every inch of her is mine.

An advert for holidays flashed up on the mobile phone the other day and it was a complete shock to realise that people pay off exotic trips abroad in monthly instalments via credit agreements with travel agencies. Whatever happened to saving up for a holiday? Maybe missing a year or two to get the finances straight and then jetting off when the money is actually in the bank.

People want things now and aren’t prepared to wait. Our son is at university and he’s bombarded with overdraft offers and credit card deals. He has been told, in no uncertain terms, that if he ever borrows so much as one penny he needn’t bother coming home.

There’s usually a new dress, handbag or pair of shoes bought from the fabulous stalls at the Great Yorkshire Show, which will be here again in a few weeks’ time.

There are ladies of a certain age from the length and breadth of the county who will be planning ahead to do the same thing. An annual splurge. Saving up is an alien concept to many. If they want something they seem to just go and buy it; preferring to pay for it over time rather than wait until they can afford it. Lessons about money management should be given in schools and universities; especially as there will be plenty of parents who also have no concept of spending only what they can afford.

Finally, plenty of debt will have been racked-up by those attending last weekend’s iconic Glastonbury Music Festival. Good luck to them; it must be an amazing experience.

However, the images of the rubbish left behind afterwards are ignored at our peril.

They should serve as a stark warning about increased public access to the countryside. Labour says if it wins the next election it will introduce a Scottish-style right to roam law in England. The farming and wider rural community seem to be burying their heads in the sand; almost as if they ignore it they think the possibility of open access will go away. They need to wake up and listen to the Scottish farmers who now spend sunny weekends picking up everything from discarded tents to nappies, camping chairs and blow up mattresses.