As the Tory leadership contest degenerates even further into a race to the far right in an effort to win over the peculiar ‘selectorate’ of 160,000 mainly elderly, prosperous Party members, the NHS has been one of the last issues to be raised.
Both Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss offer the most simplistic and self-defeating solutions. Sunak wants a “task force” driving for tougher targets, to bully NHS staff harder and magically make waiting lists stop growing by next year.
Truss apparently sees the answer as cutting out layers of management, but angered Tory ministers (and the Tory Mayor of Tees Valley) by her ludicrous claim that in a cost of living crisis she can save £11 billion by cutting the pay of civil servants and public sector workers outside London, and has had to drop the policy less than 24 hours after announcing it.
The escalation of idiocy comes as both candidates apparently target the most ignorant and reactionary layers of their party in a battle of impractical ideas.
Full story in The Lowdown, 3 August 2022