Advertisement

Jeremy Corbyn hopes the NHS might be Boris Johnson's weakness – but it's not enough to stop a Tory win

Matt Hancock and Boris Johnson make a campaign visit to Bassetlaw District General Hospital in Worksop: AFP/Getty
Matt Hancock and Boris Johnson make a campaign visit to Bassetlaw District General Hospital in Worksop: AFP/Getty

Labour has not had much good news to celebrate in this election campaign, but there is one ray of hope for the party. The NHS is now cited by more people than Brexit when they are asked to choose from a list of issues likely to determine how they will vote.

According to Ipsos Mori, health (60 per cent) has overtaken Brexit (56 per cent). The NHS is the issue cited most often by people who backed Labour at the 2017 election (68 per cent). But it is also important for those who voted Conservative then: 58 per cent mention health, putting it in second place behind Brexit (69 per cent). However, other polls suggest that when people have to choose the single most important issue, Brexit trumps health.

If the Conservatives were hoping their manifesto pledge to provide “50,000 more nurses” would help to neutralise the NHS issue, they will likely be disappointed. Although initially reported by much of the media as a pledge to recruit 50,000 extra nurses, it emerged that the figure includes 18,500 nurses the government hopes to retain in, or pull back into, the NHS workforce.

Another 12,000 will come from abroad, 14,000 will be undergraduate students and 5,000 degree-level apprenticeships. Nicky Morgan, the culture secretary, struggled to explain the numbers on ITV’s Good Morning Britain programme on Monday.

Labour seized on the confusion as evidence that the Tories were pumping out more “fake news” on the NHS. Jeremy Corbyn has also attacked Johnson’s promise to build “40 new hospitals”; some £2.7bn was allocated in September to upgrade six existing hospitals, along with £100m of funding for 36 others to develop such plans, due to be built between 2025 and 2030.

The NHS is also a means for Labour to change the election conversation from Brexit, which the party is less keen to talk about. Labour claims Johnson’s “Trump Brexit” and trade deal with the US would open up the NHS market to American health giants, and mean a hike in drug prices. The Tory manifesto insists “the NHS will not be on the table”. That will not stop Labour making “not for sale” its rallying cry; it unites a party with divisions over Brexit and reminds its ground troops of the real enemy.

Although the NHS is the Tories’ potential Achilles’ heel, it may be less of a weakness than at previous elections. On becoming prime minister, Johnson and his aides agreed to go on the offensive on health – a departure from the approach of Sir Lynton Crosby, the party’s former elections strategist, who argued there was little to gain from speaking about it.

Since July, pictures of Johnson visiting hospitals have frequently made the TV evening news bulletins. “If I see Boris in another hospital, I will scream,” one Labour official told me, an unintended compliment. The Tories no longer merely try to keep a lid on the NHS issue: Matt Hancock, the energetic health secretary, has already visited more than 70 constituencies in this election.

Labour, which trails the Tories on most issues (including “best prime minister”), is still ahead on health. But the gap is narrower than at previous elections: according to Opinium, 29 per cent of people trust Labour most, compared with 23 per cent for the Tories.

For health to become a game-changer at this election, it would probably need to dominate the news agenda for several days. There were certainly some Tory jitters when NHS statistics showed accident and emergency waiting times are the worst on record, raising fears of a looming winter crisis. Some ministers privately wondered whether Johnson had made a mistake by calling a December election.

Although Downing Street is getting regular updates on the state of the NHS, to the Tories’ relief the figures brought only one day of bad headlines. A winter crisis would have had more impact in an early spring election.

This contest is not the Brexit-only election Johnson would have preferred. Labour has managed to force other issues, including health, on to the agenda, just as it did in 2017, when the spotlight fell on austerity. Although Corbyn reduced Theresa May’s comfortable lead in the polls after the launch of Labour’s manifesto, there is little sign of that happening this time.

Labour looks incapable of winning the election on health alone; the issue cannot compensate for the party’s weakness on “best PM”, economic competence and Brexit. Johnson’s relentless “get Brexit done” message, and the prospect of leaving the EU in January, is making Brexit a more salient issue than it was two years ago. That is good news for Johnson, and bad news for Corbyn.

Read more

Boris Johnson’s manifesto pledges at a glance, from the NHS to Brexit

Johnson challenged over NHS funding plan as Labour attacks manifesto

Tory pension tax rules have caused an NHS workforce crisis