Support for trade unions is rising even though strike action is bringing public services to a standstill , Sky News polling shows.
Industrial relations are at their most fractious since the 1980s, with the country having lost more than a million working days to strikes last year.
Despite this, sympathy for striking public sector workers has risen over the past couple of months.
Exclusive polling commissioned by Sky News shows that the public increasingly think that trade unions play a positive role in society.
A survey of more than 2,000 adults found that 37% support unions, up from 35% in November.
A smaller proportion – 28% – said unions play a negative role in society, down from 34% in November.
The findings suggest that the government, which is refusing to deliver inflation-matched pay rises, may not be able to rely on waning support for strike action.
Support for unions has increased as the wave of strike action has spread from the transport and communication sectors to the NHS.
Ambulance workers, nurses and doctors have all either voted for or announced intentions to ballot for strike action since the last polling.
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YouGov data shows that NHS workers elicit the strongest support from the public.
As many as 43% of respondents to the survey said they strongly support strike action by nurses, while another 22% said they somewhat support it.
Only 31% said they strongly or somewhat oppose industrial action from nurses.
Like many public sector workers, nurses have experienced a decade of real-term pay cuts.
When inflation is taken into account, nurses’ pay fell by 7.76% between 2011 and 2020. The most recent pay deal, announced last summer, also lagged behind inflation.
It is a similar story across the public sector, with the pay gap between the public and private sector widening.
In the three months to October, average private sector pay growth, excluding bonuses, was running at 6.9%.
The figure for the public sector was just 2.7%. Meanwhile inflation was running at close to 11%.
The Sky News poll indicates robust support for industrial action but the public is uneasy about how readily unions can go on strike.
At a time when the government is pushing through legislation that will make it harder for unions to call strikes, 33% of respondents said that they were able to take action too easily and that more restrictions should be placed upon them.
This was down slightly from 34% in November.
By comparison, 22% of respondents said that unions should be given more freedom, up from 20% in November.
The YouGov/Sky News poll was carried out from 27-30 January, with 2,041 adults polled. The data is weighted to reflect the UK’s population.
Former Bank of England governor Mark Carney has been named Canadian prime minister after winning the Liberal Party leadership race in a landslide victory.
Mr Carney, who also used to be the head of Canada’s central bank, emerged as the frontrunner in the contest as the country deals with the impact of tariffs imposed by US President Donald Trump.
He ended up winning 85.9% of the vote.
During his victory speech, he told the crowd: “Donald Trump, as we know, has put unjustified tariffs on what we build, on what we sell and how we make a living.
“He’s attacking Canadian families, workers and businesses and we cannot let him succeed and we won’t.”
Mr Carney said Canada would keep retaliatory tariffs in place until “the Americans show us respect”.
Mr Trump’s tariffs against Canada and his talk of making the country America’s 51st state have infuriated Canadians.
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The American national anthem has been repeatedly booed at NHL and NBA games.
“Think about it. If they succeeded, they would destroy our way of life… America is a melting pot. Canada is a mosaic,” Mr Carney added.
“America is not Canada. Canada will never ever be part of America in any way, shape or form.”
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‘You can’t take our country or our game’
The 59-year-old will replace Justin Trudeau, who has served as prime minister since 2015.
US President Donald Trump has suggested Ukraine “may not survive” the war against Russia even if American support continued.
In an interview with Fox News channel’s ‘Sunday Morning Futures’, Mr Trump was asked about his controversial decision to pause support for Kyiv as it fends off Russia’s full-scale invasion.
Mr Trump, who had a disastrous meeting with Mr Zelenskyy at the White House last week, was asked about a warning from Polish President Andrzej Duda “that without American support, Ukraine will not survive”.
Asked if he was “comfortable” with that outcome, the US president said: “Well, it may not survive anyway.
“But we have some weaknesses with Russia. You know, it takes two,” Mr Trump added.
It comes as Mr Zelenskyy will visit Saudi Arabia for a Monday meeting with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, while Ukrainian diplomatic and military representatives will meet with a US delegation on Tuesday.
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Mr Trump’s latest remarks come amid global concern over the souring relationship between Ukraine and the US, which alongside the EU has been Kyiv’s main backer in its defence against Russia’s three-year land, air and sea invasion.
The US paused military aid and the sharing of intelligence with Ukraine this month after a meeting between Mr Trump and Mr Zelenskyy on 28 February descended into acrimony in front of the world’s media.
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Mr Trump ordered the pause as he attempts to put pressure on Mr Zelenskyy to negotiate a ceasefire deal with Russia.
Mr Trump has privately made it clear to aides that a signed minerals deal between Washington and Kyiv will not be enough to restart aid and intelligence sharing with Ukraine, Sky News’ US partner network NBC reported earlier on Sunday.
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How are Americans feeling after nearly 50 days of Trump?
The 78-year-old president is said to want the deal signed, but also wants to see a change in Mr Zelenskyy’s attitude towards peace talks.
Officials have told NBC News that Mr Trump also wants Mr Zelenskyy to make some movement towards holding elections in Ukraine and possibly stepping down as his country’s leader.
Russian special forces crept through a disused gas pipeline for several miles to launch a surprise attack on Ukrainian soldiers in the Kursk region, Ukraine’s military and pro-Moscow war bloggers have said.
Footage circulating on the Telegram app claims to show the elite soldiers crouching as they make their way through the darkness of the pipe to the town of Sudzha.
Some can be heard cursing in Russian and complaining about the commanders who sent them on the mission.
One of the soldiers is heard saying: “F*****g hell, where the f*** are we, boys?”
Another says: “Where does the pipe go? To Sudzha, for f**** sake, that’s f***ing crazy.”
Later in the clip a soldier is heard saying: “We’ll get there of course, but indignantly, because we’re f*****g sick of the f*****g command.”
He later adds: “They took our f*****g assault rifles too.”
Two of the soldiers are seen smoking cigarettes while a separate image shared on Telegram shows an operative wearing a gas mask.
Image: The footage shows soldiers creeping through the pipeline
Image: Soldiers are seen smoking cigarettes
The special forces soldiers walked around nine miles (15km) through the pipeline which Moscow had until recently used to send gas to Europe, according to Telegram posts by Ukrainian-born pro-Kremlin blogger Yuri Podolyaka.
In the footage, the soldiers suggest the mission requires them to walk seven miles through the pipe.
Mr Podolyaka says some of them spent several days in the pipeline before striking Ukrainian units from the rear near Sudzha.
The operation formed part of efforts by Russia to recapture areas of Kursk which were seized by thousands of Ukrainian soldiers in a shock offensive in August last year.
Another pro-Russian war blogger, who uses the alias Two Majors, said a major battle is under way in Sudzha after Moscow’s special forces crept through the pipe.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s general staff confirmed on Saturday that Russian soldiers had used the pipeline in an attempt to gain a foothold, but airborne assault forces promptly detected them, and they responded with rocket, artillery and drone attacks that destroyed Moscow’s units.
“The enemy’s losses in Sudzha are very high,” the general staff reported.
Image: A close-up image of one of the soldiers in the pipeline
Image: The soldiers crept through the tunnel for several miles
It comes as Ukraine’s Air Assault Forces shared a video on Telegram on Saturday which it claims shows Kyiv’s forces repelling Russian forces in Kursk with airstrikes.
Sky News has not independently verified the footage.
Months after Kyiv’s forces seized parts of Kursk, Ukrainian soldiers are weary and bloodied by relentless assaults of more than 50,000 Russian troops, including some from Moscow’s ally North Korea.
Tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers run the risk of being encircled, open-source maps of the battlefield showed on Friday.
Meanwhile, Russia’s defence ministry said this morning that it had captured a settlement in Kursk and another in Ukraine’s Sumy region.
Russia also launched heavy aerial attacks overnight on Ukraine into Saturday – with at least 22 people killed, including 11 in the frontline town of Dobropilla in Ukraine’sembattled eastern Donetsk region.
The attacks come after the US paused military aid and the sharing of intelligencewith Ukraine this month after a meeting between US President Donald Trump and Mr Zelenskyy descended into a confrontation in front of the world’s media.
The Trump administration’s stance on Ukraine and apparent favouring of Moscow has sparked concern among European leaders.
Meanwhile, Russian officials have been criticised after presenting mothers of soldiers killed in Ukraine with gifts of meat grinders on International Women’s Day.
Russia is often accused of throwing its troops into a “meat grinder” with little regard for their lives.
The local branch of government in the northwestern Russian town of Polyarniye Zori defended itself against the backlash, saying critics were making “callous and provocative interpretations” of the gifts.