Another week goes by.  Hundreds of thousands of workers, mainly public sector, on strike last week, and again this week. Pay deals way below inflation. Zero movement from government.  Continuing disruption and decay. Why can’t a settlement be reached? Yet settling the pay disputes at a reasonable level would have no discernible impact on inflation, little or no impact on taxpayers – and on the contrary, would tend to boost the economy. It would, above all, start to restore some stability to our public services, whose rapid decay is so visible to all.