During today’s PMQs Labour leader Sir Keri Starmer suggested the PM was using ‘magic money tree’ to fund his NHS workforce plan, as Sunak called out junior doctors.
Starmer said Chancellor Jeremy Hunt looked “bewildered” when Rishi Sunak said the plan was fully funded. ‘Where is it coming from? The magic money tree?’
The PM shot back saying when the autumn statement is published, it will show the plan is fully funded.
PMQs Junior doctors’ strike
Then the PM said, while Labour MPs are “back on the picket lines”, Starmer refuses to take a position.
Starmer should “stop taking inspiration from his friends outside and unglue himself from the fence”.
Sunak then claimed that all the improvements of the NHS have ‘all been held up by industrial action in the NHS.
This image says a lot…
Despicable
In response to Sunak’s comments filmmaker Peter Stefanovic created another hard hitting video slamming the PM.
Peter shared the video and wrote: “The Prime Minister blaming Junior doctors for hospital waiting lists is one of the most despicable things he’s said & for the record he’s offered them a crappy real terms pay cut If like me you stand with the junior doctors who sacrificed so much to keep us safe RT this widely.”
Angry unions
Last week health union leaders have reacted furiously to a warning from Rishi Sunak that his offer of a 6% pay rise this year was final and that “no amount of strikes” would change his mind, as they began their longest walkout yet in England.
Pat Cullen, the RCN’s general secretary, said: “The prime minister will have to explain to over a million outraged NHS workers why they are getting the lowest pay rise in the public sector.
“Record numbers of jobs in the NHS are unfilled and the government cannot expect to turn that around when it appears not to value them. Patients are paying the price.
“Inflation is not coming down in the way ministers told NHS staff and others it would. For nursing staff, the pay rise they actually rejected is worth increasingly little and being eclipsed now by announcements for other professions. It is unfair and inadequate.
“This seems a highly cavalier approach by government when it knows over 100,000 nursing staff across the country voted to continue strike action only days ago. Today’s news will only add to that number.”
Related: PMQs: Mhairi Black steals the show as Sunak skips it…again – reactions
