Boris Johnson gives himself a hospital pass as he avoids picture of sick child

Is Boris Johnson a robot? I ask this advisedly, given the connotations of that word in the political arena, but the way the Prime Minister responded to questions from a journalist this afternoon does suggest he might be turning into one.

He was asked by ITV’s Joe Pike for a response to the photo of a young boy with suspected pneumonia lying on the floor of Leeds General Infirmary, waiting for a bed. It’s a difficult photo for anyone to look at without an emotional response, and Johnson initially refused to see it at all, taking the reporter’s phone out of his hand, and shoving it in his own pocket. Instead of looking, he said: ‘What we are doing is we are taking this country forward and we are investing in the NHS and what would be the worst thing possible would be to have a government that is mired in more deadlock, more disarray, and unable to move forward, so I have every sympathy with families who are suffering.’

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