So the one exception that I considered putting in would be cases where the government is the employer and is negotiating with their employees. And yes of course, they will use whatever arguments they can to come out ahead in labor negotiations, like any employer.

I didn't see any mention of calls for workers to accept lower wages in the first article. In the second article, such calls were mentioned but not explicitly referenced or quoted. (Maybe they would be familiar to a British audience.)

But I would say that is different than asking for private sector workers to accept lower wages as an inflation fighting strategy. And note that the actual fiscal policy that the UK has pursued is wage subsidies, as much as 650£ - 1000£ annually it seems. (As described in the second article, not something I'm familiar with beyond that.)