Thanks to Dottie for alerting me to this:

From the BMJ 2 April 2026:

A thousand extra training places for resident doctors in England will no longer be available this April, the government has said. The axing of the posts came after the government issued an ultimatum to the doctors’ union the BMA as part of the ongoing dispute over pay and jobs.

The prime minister, Keir Starmer, wrote in the Times1 on 30 March that 1000 training places promised by the government for this month would be axed if the union continued to refuse to put the government’s latest offer—which was rejected by the BMA’s Resident Doctors Committee (RDC)—to members within 48 hours. This followed a similar threat from the health secretary, Wes Streeting, which was made when the RDC announced a wave of strike action after rejecting the deal.

https://www.bmj.com/content/393/bmj.s652

Also in the BMJ on 9 January 2026:

Ultimately, this offer is a vote of confidence in, and a signal of the vital importance of, resident doctors. It is an investment in the future of the NHS workforce and will be good for doctors, but also for patients, as we seek to recruit and retain the workforce both for today and the future. It is, in our view, a strong step on the way to achieving our shared ambition with the Scottish Government, of making Scotland the best place in the UK for doctors to train and work.’

https://www.bma.org.uk/news-and-opinion/resident-doctors-suspend-strikes

No ultimatums [ultimata?], no threats just getting on with the day job.

Trumpish Starmer and Streeting or professional Swinney and Gray?

See:

Are there similarities in the psychology used by Donald Trump against Iran and that use by Sir Keir Starmer or Wes Streeting against the resident doctors? Yes, indeed, there are.