Nurses

Keir Starmer had his most effective parliamentary outing in some time today. The Labour leader not only picked the right topic, nurses pay, but asked short, pithy questions which made it harder for Boris Johnson to change the subject.  Starmer landed a few blows with some cheap but effective comparisons of what nurses were getting compared to other bits of government spending. With elections coming in two months’ time, Labour will be happy to run with this issue. The only protection that the Tories have on it is to say that the independent pay review body will, ultimately, make a recommendation. Starmer’s performance could, though, have been even more effective.

Helen Whately, the care minister, is being tarred and feathered. She wrote a letter to an MP about student nurses, saying they are ‘supernumerary and not deemed to be providing a service’. The outpouring of fury online and, sadly, from some traditional media outlets provides an object lesson in all that’s wrong with the way Britain debates politics and government in the era of Twitter. Whately’s comments should not be ‘controversial’ or even newsworthy, because she said nothing wrong. Student nurses are indeed ‘supernumerary’, which means that they are not counted towards the total of nursing staff in the NHS. This is not just sensible, it’s something recognised and demanded