PMQs: Corbyn hammers Johnson over NHS as election campaign looms
Jeremy Corbyn kick-started his 2019 election campaign this afternoon, hammering the Prime Minister over the NHS in all of his questions during PMQs.
The Labour leader claimed Boris Johnson’s “sell-out” Brexit deal would see NHS money “going into private profit”. He argued a Channel 4 Dispatches investigation, broadcast this week, showed the health service had been repeatedly discussed with US officials, and demanded to know why the government insisted it was not on the table.
Johnson rebuffed these accusations, saying: “Because it is not on the table.”
However Corbyn continued to press him on the matter, arguing Johnson’s claim that he was investing in 40 new hospitals was wrong and that “the real figure is just six”.
The Labour leader persisted, also arguing that survival rates have fallen over the nine years of austerity.
But while his election attack line is clearly the health service, Johnson’s emerged as the defender of free trade and the scourge of socialism.
Johnson argued that Corbyn was suggesting the NHS should not be talking to US companies. He added that if Corbyn is saying that he does not want dentists and Macmillan nurses to work with the NHS, he is “out of his mind”.
He highlighted the “economic catastrophe” a Labour government would cause, with £196bn being spent on nationalisations. He pointed to the “toxic torpor” created by two referendums, on Brexit and on Scotland, if Corbyn gets in.
Today was the last PMQs for many MPs including former minister and Rushcliffe MP Ken Clarke, who is standing down after 49 years, Hastings and Rye MP Amber Rudd and the speaker John Bercow.
Bercow is the main source of inspiration for Edenbridge’s Bonfire Night effigy, which depicts the controversial figure holding Corbyn and Johnson’s heads in either hand.
Main image: Getty