Tory MP Dan Poulter’s defection to Labour piles pressure on Rishi Sunak

The shock defection of a Tory MP to Labour in anger over the NHS crisis has heaped pressure on Rishi Sunak ahead of what is already expected to be a tough week for the Prime Minister. Dr Dan Poulter, a former health minister and working medic, on Saturday quit the Tory Party saying it is “failing” the health service and that he could no longer “look my NHS colleagues in the eye” as a Conservative. He will take the Labour whip until the general election but will not be running again as the MP for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich, he wrote in the Observer.