Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

How the Tories plan to take the fight to Labour on the NHS

(Photo by Toby Melville-WPA Pool/Getty Images)

Brace yourselves for health week. After the rip-roaring success of the government’s ‘stop the boats’ week, you might forgive the NHS for looking a bit scared that now ministers have the health service on their media grid for the coming days. As with last week’s focus on illegal immigration, the government is kicking off with a series of pre-briefed stories in the Sunday newspapers about the health service – and it’s striking how many of them are designed to take the fight to Labour.

There’s the claim in the Sun by Welsh Secretary David Davies that Sue Gray, who is about to become Keir Starmer’s chief of staff, ‘dragged her heels’ on data showing how the NHS was performing in Labour-run Wales. The Labour Party has described it as ‘desperate’, and it does seem a rather silly claim but it is part of a more aggressive approach by Rishi Sunak towards Labour.

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