he's stressed the need for congress to approve the latest tranche of military aid for kyiv, which is currently being blocked by republicans. now on bbc news, political thinking with nick robinson. "troublemaker" isn't a word that my guests normally use to describe themselves. but my guest on political thinking this week, a conversation with, rather than interrogation of, someone who shapes our political thinking about what has shaped theirs, does call herself a troublemaker. she is the deputy chair of the bma, the british medical association, which is planning another series

ofjunior doctors�* strikes. emma runswick has a life at the age ofjust 28 of causing trouble for causes that she believes passionately in. she is shaped also by her experience, an experience shared by so manyjunior doctors, of working on the front line of the nhs during the pandemic, of seeing so many people die so traumatically. emma runswick, welcome to political thinking. thank you for having me. you are called many things and have been since you took up this post. "militant" is one that keeps coming up. is that a badge of pride or is it an insult from the tabloid press? in some ways, it's a badge of pride, because what they mean by militant is organised, consistent. it means that i am one of the many standing up for doctors and patients in this country against a government

and an nhs situation which is very, very difficult. so it's not something that i might necessarily choose for myself, but i'm not offended by it in any way. there are other phrases. "ringleader of a cabal of far—left medics." hmm, interesting. i mean, i don't think that's necessarily true. am i left—wing 7 definitely. are there many of us? yes, of course there are. is it surprising that many of us who want to make the world a better place gravitate towards our trade union and professional association, the purpose of which is to enable us to improve our lives and the lives of our patients? i don't think that's surprising. so, yeah, again, i'm not really bothered by these ideas if that's what the right—wing press are going to use to attack me. welcome. the other is "leader of a coup." now, i suspect you don't like the word coup, but there was a conscious decision,

wasn't there, you and a group known as the broad left decide that you can run the bma better than it's been run before. you do it under a label, you call yourself red runswick. emma runswick is your name, but the red is now obvious what you mean. to change it to what? to be what? yeah, i mean, isay red in hair and red in politics for a reason, because we have learned our lessons from the rest of the labour movement that if you organise together, if you collaborate, if you take things that put your negotiating partners under pressure, you do partners under pressure to shift their position, then you are more effective. and that could be anything. so at local level, we've had some success with just causing nuisance, you know, on issues such as making sure that you've got facilities for hot food. at the other end of the spectrum, obviously, we've got nationwide strike action to shift

the government's position on pay, and unions can act right between those different ends of the spectrum, at every level, in order to improve our lives and improve the lives of the patients we look after. now, it's interesting you talked about causing a nuisance as being one way of getting an important objective. and you've been doing this all your life, haven't you? and partly because your parents were trade unionists, are trade unionists. now retired. yeah. but very much so. so i was raised in a trade union family. my mum was for a time deputy president of the pcs union. both my parents were active, both locally and nationally. pcs is a civil servants, a public officials�* union? yes, absolutely. what's the youngest do you think you were at a protest or a picket line? 0h, in a buggy. you know, i went on the dockers marches when i was in a buggy and there are pictures of me doing that. i was taken to trade union

conferences, in some cases actively to be disruptive when they were having arguments about creche facilities and allowing parents to be involved. you know, i was crawling down the aisle because they were making the point that they didn't really want children to be there, and they should provide facilities so that parents could be involved. let me just get this right, your parents sort of let you loose, if you do that to a child... yeah. ..in order to make a point. absolutely. you obviously didn't know you were making a point, presumably, at that age. yeah, but it was part of the campaign to shift the position in their union, much in the way that i've shifted the positions in mine. do you have a first memory, then? because obviously, you wouldn't remember being a toddler. what's your first memory of being involved in protest or politics? probably a picket line outside a job centre. there was a dispute going on around safety ofjobcentre workers, with screens. they'd had screens put in because there'd been a lot of abuse, a lot of, in some cases, violence.

so i went with my parents to that picket line and i was, i don't know, five—ish. and i, you know, participated in asking people not to go to work. did they understand what the...? you know, "don't you know they're on strike today?" you know, so i was doing that from very young, just copying, really. you started to organise at school, i'm told, even in primary school. yeah, even in primary school. so we had a school council in primary school, which i was on, but we also had, you know, occasionally issues would come up. so i remember i must have been in year 5 or 6, so 10 or ii, there was an argument on a rainy day... so no kind of premise to this, no forward—thinking of this event, on a rainy day that we should be let back inside. there were people who hadn't prepared for that, no coats, cold, etc. but we were being fed into lunch in the same way as usual, leaving some people wet and cold.

and people were beginning to argue about that. they were getting into arguments with the, you know, dinner support staff, and about three of them got into trouble. they were put on the wall, which was a kind of, you know, a punishment for lunch time. so you did what, aged 10 or ii? aged 10 or ii, i organised for everybody to also go on the wall and to refuse to go into lunch until they let the three people who had been punished go in as well. we weren't. .. i wasn't about to stand there and let people who were standing up for us and standing up for us all be individually picked out. now, you've just come from a lgbt event. you're wearing a t—shirt. yes, a "pits and perverts" t—shirt that recognises lesbians and gays support the miners. yeah, and was that something that you had to battle about when you were at school? yeah, so school was a very hostile environment for me

from a sexuality perspective. and the shadow of section 28 is a long one. and whilst it had been well repealed by the time i got to secondary school, it was still prominent in the attitudes of teachers and parents. so you're just 28 years old and therefore, you know, thatcher, that section 28 was a long, long time in the past. well, it was repealed in 2003. this is really recent history. so i went to school, secondary school, in the immediate aftermath of that, in reality. and that policy, you know, the policy of "we must not talk about this", was still very prominent. and we had, i mean, not very long after i came out, a parent complained about me and my girlfriend, and the school responded by separating us, banning us from each other�*s forum

rooms and moving my girlfriend down a maths set so we didn't share any classes, and generally enforcing that, you know, "no, you must not spend any time together in school. it must not be at all clear that there is any of that nonsense here." you know, it was an approach that said, "no, we must shut this down." did you win your battle on that? i didn't fight. so my parents, who were always very supportive, were gearing to go to support me. and i decided not to, because homophobia and biphobia was such a prominent problem that frankly, the attitude of the school, the institutional attitude of the school was not the only problem or indeed the primary problem. that brings us to the strikes that you're very heavily involved in at the british medical association now. can we just begin with the ethics of this? way back in the bma's past, when it was just a professional association, i think the word that was used about strikes and industrial action was "unthinkable." it actually said that.

how do you think about them now, given that what used to always be called the hippocratic oath, i think it's now called the declaration of geneva, given that pledge doctors make that the health and well—being of my patient will be my first consideration... hmm. so i think the health and well—being of my patients and our patients is our first consideration. we're experiencing a health system in collapse. system where we cannot give the care that patients deserve. and we have choices. we either continue to let that happen around us and we make the individual decisions to leave medicine or the country, as thousands of us are doing, or we make the decision to fight back. and i think the decision to fight back is the much more ethical position. during strike action, we ensure the safety of patients who need urgent emergency and critical care. but on the ethics, aren't you just redefining that oath? you see, i think what that

oath means is the health and well—being of my patient, the person in front of me, not the collective. that's what politics is for. if you want to change the collective, how much money the nhs gets, what sort of health system we have, that's why we vote in elections. the hippocratic oath says, "the person in front of me, i will put before anything." so we talk about the principles of medical ethics being non—maleficence, doing as little harm as possible. there's always harm associated with health care. all of our drugs have side effects, all of our operations and so on. so doing the least possible harm, doing the most possible benefit, promoting autonomy, and then the fourth principle of medical ethics is justice. right, that's the fourth principle of medical ethics. we try and ensure the best care for the vast majority of people, you know, for the largest number of people. and we have choices to make when we are in a situation where actually the care that we give to the person in front of us

is never the quality that i would like them to receive. but if they're in front of you, they want that appointment now. they do, they do. but if we don't do something, then neither they nor the thousands and thousands upon thousands of people who need treatment in the future will have access to it. so we have some choices to make. i agree it's a choice, right? but i would rather make the choice that benefits more than benefits one. and you can't leave that to the electorate? i mean... isn't that what elections are for? so, you know, is that going to happen immediately? are we going to, you know, since we started this dispute in october 2022, forjunior doctors, we have shifted the government really significantly. but i don't think we should have to wait till election year to try and rescue the service that we provide to patients. 35% was a mistake, wasn't it? going into a negotiation, asking for something you must have

known you hadn't possibly got a chance of getting? i don't think it's a mistake to ask for what you've had stolen from you back. you haven't had it stolen, have you? it's... i mean, it's a pay loss, a progressive pay loss. are you saying anybody who's had a pay freeze has had their money stolen from them? why are they worth less than they were in 2008? well, because the economy is smaller. but there are some people doing very well out of that. so there's huge numbers of people who have paid for the crisis who never caused it. they're not worth any less. they shouldn't be poorer. do you think 35% was a sensible thing to ask for? i think pay restorations are a completely reasonable ask. just explain what you mean by pay restoration, then, because that was where you began this dispute. it remains something that you don't expect straight away, but you want to make steps towards. yeah. and never have expected straight away, by the way. what is it and how much would it cost? what is it?

so, it's the reversal of about 26% real terms pay cut since 2008. that's been progressive over time. and we think that it would cost about £1.1 billion in england for junior doctors. other people have calculated it slightly differently. we've said the real cost is about 1.1 billion because the government receives some of it back in tax and so on. they would say it's about double that. about double. and i've got to be honest, i think that's worth it for maintaining the health care of your country. you once talked about getting nhs pay restoration for everybody. mm, i think that would be ideal. nurses, doctors, porters. how much would that cost? oh, significantly more, because there is... tens of billions, you were once quoted as saying. yeah, possibly because there are... what, 50 odd billion? and again, none of these people are worth any less than they were worth in 2008. but do you think 50 billion is a realistic sum for pay? i think it would be fine. in other words, if emma runswick, now deputy chair of the bma, i made you health secretary, you'd say, "right, let's go to the chancellor, let's go and ask for £a0—50 billion

to restore pay in the nhs." well, i can't speak for the other groups of staff, but i don't think... i'm sure they'd like the money if you did. i don't think it would be unreasonable. you know, why is it in society that we have decided that it's acceptable to make working people, people who are running one of the most essential services in the country, for those people to be poorer? why? it doesn't have to be that way. we could make a different choice. we could politically make a different choice. well, we come back to why we have elections, then, rather than why we have trade unions, which is, we vote for people who make it... now, in many ways, you'd like us to do that, wouldn't you? i mean, there's a reason you call yourself red runswick. you regard yourself, i think the phrase you used at one stage is unashamedly socialist. what does that mean? it means that i'm happy to talk about the ideas that working people deserve their share. i'd like to see a society in which the people who actually run

society have far more control over it. that's what i'd like to see. is there anybody in politics that represents that set of ideas? wasjeremy corbyn someone who represented that set of ideas, and john mcdonnell, when he was chancellor? i mean, much closer. but, you know, i'm not, you know, fan—girling over anybody in the labour party. but is that sort of...? i take your point, these aren't personalities you want about, but it's that kind of politics that you want to see. you must be horrified by the labour party now, then. i mean, i think we're getting certainly some progress from the labour party. i mean, wes streeting is now talking about pay restoration being a journey. we're happy to hear that. the labour party in wales, not so much. you know, there's strike action now from junior doctors in wales as well. you mentioned wes streeting, labour's shadow health secretary. he's described the bma as "hostile"

and "blind to the something for nothing culture." yeah. it doesn't sound like you've quite got him under your thumb. he's rowed back a bit more recently, but yeah, definitely, he has some interesting ideas that we disagree with. but equally, you know, we're talking to streeting and the labour partyjust in the same way that we talk to the conservatives. what do you disagree with? what do i disagree with wes streeting on? oh, many things. so, you know, for example, he had some attacks on general practice last year... attacks? yeah, absolutely. so he's saying things like, "oh, well, wejust need better access. we should have patients having direct referral processes through... we don't really need as many gps" and so on. but you know, general practice is currently falling apart at the seams and i think the approach was not very helpful. but again, you know,

he has moved back from some of those statements and we are now having more productive discussions with streeting. and, you know, i'm kind of assuming now that he will be the next health secretary and we'll have... you know, unless the tories change again, and we'll have more discussions with him then, and whoever else is in charge in any of the four nations. we haven't talked yet about you as a doctor. mm. you qualified as a doctor, and along comes covid. yeah. it feels a long, long time ago, doesn't it? emotionally, politically, the status of doctors, the way they're perceived in public. 0k. yeah, when you said it feels a long time ago, it doesn't. it doesn't feel a long time ago at all. the pandemic is still raging. we still see covid patients, people still die of covid. and, you know, these things are present, and more so, the experiences that we had

during the first couple of waves of the pandemic... do you feel... ? ..are still very present. do you feel scarred by that? because i know lots ofjunior doctors... yeah. ..who may never really forget, certainly won't forget, but may not recover, frankly, emotionally from what they had to witness. yeah. and in some cases, physically. you know, we've had lots of doctors who were repeatedly infected. repeat infections raise your risk for long covid and long—term symptoms from that. and of course, some of our colleagues died. i don't think we should forget those colleagues that we lost. so what was it like? you're now i know in community mental health care, but then, like alljunior doctors, you were, as it were, working on the front line, you're in hospital. what was that like? so the things that i will never forget in reality are... ..what became termed happy hypoxics. so normally, when people

are on their way towards death, in the process of dying or they are losing oxygen through whatever condition they have, people become drowsy, people become less aware. often we assist people in that by giving them pain relief, by giving them relaxants and so on, to ease the process of natural death. in covid, we had a lot of people who maintained full awareness despite the fact that their oxygen levels were falling quite dramatically. so you were able to have, we were able to have full conversations with people who i knew would imminently die. and that is something... because. ..ooh. .. that is something that's really difficult because... difficult to recall as well, isn't it? yes.

because the fear that... ..like, i have and they have is not ameliorated by the fact that you are providing them some level of comfort. did they know? sometimes, no. but often, yes. this is death on a scale that i was not prepared for, and people, you know, previous to my generation had not seen it that way, and indeed, since, now we don't get it in the same way. it's a very particular generational occurrence. do you think that explains the anger, because there clearly is anger amongst junior doctors. hmm. what you described as the emotional scarring, the physical scarring sometimes, that... well, the first word we used in this interview, that word "militant", that militancy has some of its roots in the trauma... i think it's possible. ..people like you have lived through. i think it's possible, because if you are in an environment

where you are, you know, risking your life and being very genuine about that, risking your life to look after others, and you are being applauded, you know, on the streets for doing so, and simultaneously, you are receiving shoddy ppe and another pay cut and another pay cut and continuing infantilising, in the case particularly ofjunior doctors... infantilisation in the way you're treated? in the way we're treated, in the way that our rotas are designed, in the way that our lives are not respected, picked up and moved across the country with no choice, you know, changes constantly, last—minute changes like you don't have any life, they expect you to not have any wider life. then, yeah, that's very difficult because it doesn't fit, right, with the work that you're doing. and it really emphasises how politicians do not care and how we have to act to get them to care.

what's striking, though, is that after that overwhelming public support, the clapping, the pots and pans being banged, you've still got some public support for doctors�* strikes... oh, very much so. but it's dropping and it's dropped quite a long way, hasn't it? do you fear that you're reaching a point at which the public are saying, "enough now"? so the polling shows still that more of the public support us than oppose the strikes, which is, i mean, ithink pretty incredible. most trade unions don't receive that level of backing from the public. and what's even more interesting is that when you survey patients, the support is greater than amongst the general public. and i think that's because they see what we do. although the reason for these strikes is simply because your mandate was about to run out. you've got five more days of strikes, not because something's fallen apart in a negotiation, but because if you don't, your mandate runs out. this is... i've had it put to me by senior managers in the nhs, this is sort

of trade union convenience. it isn't a response to what's happening in a negotiation, because you're not even in a negotiation at the moment. we are talking to the government. i mean, you know, the promise of talks within 20 minutes turned into 20 days. the promise of, "i've got a final offer up my sleeve," that hasn't materialised. you know, we've had no further offer put to us that we can put to members, which is a real shame. and we set internal deadlines so that we don'tjust go nowhere. so we're in a space where, you know, we would much prefer not to be taking strike action. and indeed, we offered, we asked for the government and nhs employers to extend the mandate so that talks could continue further. if they think that we're close to a deal, excellent, we'll give them more time. they asked you to put the pay negotiation to your members and you said you wouldn't do that. so there's. .. people make arguments on both sides. nick, we would put something if they'd put something to us. yeah. they said they've offered you 3% more than they did originally. and right now, we're re—balloting.

so if, you know, members have not at all told us that, "oh, well, we would like 3% additional" and we're re—balloting right now. if they think that 3% is enough, they can vote no. and i 100% guarantee you, nick, they will not vote no. members will give us another mandate. doctors will give us another mandate to take further strike action. these strikes will go on beyond the election? they might do. i hope not. i hope not every day that we will have, you know, further progress in negotiations. but if they want to put something to us that we are able to put to members, that might be accepted by members, then we'll put it. i mean, we have done in scotland. we did do for consultants. you know, we are not an unreasonable party to negotiate with. emma runswick, deputy chair of the bma, the british medical association, thank you forjoining me on political thinking. thank you for having me. emma runswick personifies the transformation of the bma, once seen as a comfortable professional association, into a fighting trade union. she, along with colleagues,

believed they were being let down in negotiations with the government. they took over the bma. they're now taking on the government. and what's clear, she's not planning to back down any time soon. thanks for watching. hello, there. good evening. some very mild air across the uk at the moment. some pretty spring—like scenes too, such as here in perth and kinross, lots of snowdrops. but for many it's been a grey, damp and drizzly day today. the ground already saturated too in places, especially out towards the west. and there's a band of heavy rain sweeping eastwards overnight tonight. could potentially lead to some more surface water flooding. of course, very large puddles out there, as this heavy rain just pushes southwards and eastwards through the night, moving into shetland and lingering

across east anglia and the far south east of england. but some clear spells developing behind, although temperatures won't drop very far, staying in double figures for most. a few isolated showers out towards the north and the west as we head into tomorrow morning. but a rather soggy start to the day across the south east of england, down towards the south coast as well, east anglia and across shetland. the rain will eventually clear, but it could linger on for some as we head even into the first part of the afternoon, but it will turn gradually more showery. cloud behind it, the cloud breaking up to leave us with some bright and some sunny spells. but for many, i think it will stay largely dry through the day on sunday. some isolated showers again out towards the west of scotland, perhaps western wales and northern ireland, but mostly dry. temperatures again well above the seasonal average, peaking between 10—14, maybe even 15 celsius. next week, though, temperatures will be dipping back down to the seasonal average. so it will be feeling colder, particularly by night. and it's still going

to be rather unsettled. various areas of low pressure moving in from the atlantic, including another one on sunday night and into monday. and that's going to bring us some showery outbreaks of rain. it's all pushing its way further southwards and eastwards, gradually fizzling out. lots of brighter skies behind it, along with a northwesterly wind. and again, a few isolated showers in the north and the west, but a definite dip in temperature there, feeling a little fresher by a couple of degrees. and it will be feeling cooler, too, on monday night, with many of our temperatures widely dropping back into mid—single figures. there's another weather front coming through on tuesday. strong, gusty winds as we head through wednesday, with more heavy, persistent rain for the south of england. so here's the temperature outlook for our capital cities as we head through next week. it will be feeling cooler and it will stay unsettled. wet, very windy at times. bye— bye.

live from washington. this is bbc news. volodomyr zelensky calls for more military aid from western leaders — after ukraine loses a key front line town to invading russians. the whereabouts of the body of the late russian opposition figure alexei navalny is unknown, as russian authorities refuse to release him to his family. and israel's prime minister insists he won't bow to international pressure over israel's offensive in gaza. i'm helena humphrey, good to have you with us.

just a day after jailed russian opposition leader alexei navalny�*s death — president vladimir putin is celebrating a victory on the battlefield in ukraine. he congratulated his troops for capturing the eastern town of avdiivka. russia's defence ministry says it has taken �*full control�* after ukraine withdrew its troops. the fall of avdiivka is russia's biggest win in ukraine for months. ukrainian president volodymyr zelensky blames diminishing supplies of western weapons. after us presidentjoe biden spoke with mr zelensky saturday morning, the white house said �*ukrainian soldiers had to ration ammunition due to dwindling supplies as a result of congressional inaction�*. our correspondent andrew harding is in the donbas region, not far from avdiivka. ukrainian troops film themselves as they withdraw from avdiivka. exhausted after the longest and perhaps the bloodiest battle of the war so far. russian shells still landing close by.