That 98 per cent of junior doctors have voted in favour of strike action over their new contract shows the extent of the stand-off between the medical profession and Jeremy Hunt. It is not possible that all the members of the BMA who turned out to vote (76 per cent) are raving left-wingers. Most of them weren’t particularly politicised before this dispute.
The question that a number of Tory MPs and ministers are asking is whether a generation of people who, given their education and income bracket, fall quite naturally into the group normally pretty likely to vote Tory are now never going to do so because of the bad blood between the medics and the government on this matter. Tory MPs have been asked in the past few days to be as vocal as they can in the Chamber and on social media about Hunt’s readiness to return to the negotiating table and the importance of the BMA doing the same.
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