What’s causing the nurses’ strike? At PMQs we found out.
First, came a tale of anguish. Sir Keir raised the distressing case of 11-year-old Alex who needs a gallbladder operation. Surgical dates have been cancelled. Vital weeks at school have been missed. ‘Alex’s mum is worried sick,’ said Sir Keir, his voice trembling with outrage. ‘She wants [the PM] to explain what he is going to do to resolve the nursing strike.’ Then he upped the stakes. ‘Alex’s mum is listening,’ he said. ‘She’s tuned in now.’ This sounded ominous. Was she being detained in a panelled office near parliament, surrounded by Labour strongmen cracking their knuckles?
‘It’s not just Alex’s mum,’ said Rishi, heartlessly, ‘there are millions of others who will have their healthcare disrupted.’ Which is little comfort to anyone. He accused Sir Keir of using ‘a political formula to avoid taking a position.’ And he demanded answers. Is Sir Keir against strikes? Then say so. Does he favour a 19 per cent payrise? Say so. Rishi alleged that his lack of clarity proved weakness.
‘He’s not strong enough to stand up to the unions.’
Alex’s mum hadn’t expected to be discarded as ‘a political formula’. Doubtless she hoped that warm reassurances would flow from Rishi’s lips and that her ailing child would be instantly carried into an emergency room by sprinting paramedics. And what did brave Sir Keir do? The knight in shining armour dropped Alex’s mum immediately and defended himself. She wasn’t mentioned again. Her stint as Labour’s human shield ended as soon as her usefulness expired. Tough game, politics. Party leaders should think twice before dragging individual cases into the chamber and raising hopes that a personal crisis can be resolved by the prime minister, live on TV.
Sir Keir moved to a different personal issue. Rishi’s missus. The link between her and the nurses’ strike may seem tenuous, but legal wizard Sir Keir explained the chain of causation.
A lack of cash is crippling the NHS, he said, quoting a report by the King’s Fund which blamed ‘ten years of managed decline’ on the Tories. Rishi, an avid bookworm, wasn’t standing for this. He always reads exciting reports by bureaucrats from cover to cover, including the footnotes, the appendix and the bibliography. He fired back with a quote from the same report praising the Tories for lifting the NHS budget by 40 per cent. Sir Keir soldiered on and mentioned the staffing crisis. Over 133,000 positions are currently being advertised, he said (and not all of them for diversity officers). Ultimately, he argued, the shortage of cash was caused by non-doms. A crazy claim but there it is. He said that if the government would just scrap this loophole it could lavish riches galore on every nurse in the land. Ingots all round and free champagne for life. But the killjoy non-doms won’t let it happen. And their number happens to include Rishi’s wife.
So there it is. Greedy Mrs Sunak is forcing the nurses to abandon the sick and embarrass the government in the hope of winning a better pay deal. Taking a harsh view, the strike appears to ‘endanger civilian life for political ends.’ In other words, it’s terrorism. And Sir Keir holds Mrs Rishi responsible for a crisis that may end in avoidable deaths. It’s clear what should happen next. Mrs Sunak must be designated a terrorist organisation. And the law should crack down hard on anyone offering her help, cash or resources. That’s you, Rishi. It’s time the PM turned himself in.
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