Tories are toast if we can’t fix NHS waiting lists, says Sunak
Leadership outsider puts health and trans issues at heart of his campaign as he heads to shires
EVERY family will soon know someone waiting for an operation on a NHS waiting list, with electorally disastrous consequences for the Conservative party, Rishi Sunak warned yesterday.
The former chancellor told dozens of party members in Hertfordshire: “If we don’t fix this problem by the next election we are toast – it is as simple as that.”
Mr Sunak also declared that he knows “exactly what a woman is” and defended his proposal to slash VAT from fuel bills as he sought to rein in rival Liz Truss’s lead in the race to be Conservative leader.
The outsider in the Conservative leadership contest embarked on a whistle-stop tour of three associations in Hertfordshire, south Cambridgeshire and west Suffolk as the battle to win the hearts and minds of members got under way in earnest.
First stop was a private home in Harpenden, Herts, just before lunchtime, where 80 Conservative activists clutching bottles of plastic water were waiting in a private garden for him.
Mr Sunak – in a crisp white opennecked shirt, using a microphone and portable speaker – opened with a few remarks before an illuminating question and answer session with the members standing in the garden.
The topics discussed offered a foretaste of what Mr Sunak and Ms Truss can expect when the members’ hustings start in earnest in Leeds tomorrow night. In a break from the sharp words on tax, and personalities that have dominated the televised debates, the members from Hitchin and Harpenden Conservatives were more concerned about the NHS, heating bills, new housing and the so-called “culture wars”.
On the NHS’S large post-pandemic waiting lists, Mr Sunak was forthright, acknowledging that staff were “under pressure to get the backlog down because it is unacceptably high level and people are waiting for treatment they desperately need”.
He said: “If we don’t fix this problem by the next election we are toast – it is as simple as that. We are at the point where every family will have someone on a waiting list the way things are going. If we go into an election like that they are not going to send us back.” Mr Sunak defended his decision while Chancellor to press ahead with the 1.25 per cent increase in National Insurance contributions, insisting it was “not an easy thing” for him to do. He said: “I did it because it was the right thing to do because the NHS got hammered in this pandemic.”
Mr Sunak won the largest round of applause when he was clear where he stood on the issue of trans rights.
“The fact that we have to have a conversation about what a woman is, is quite frankly extraordinary,” he said.
“As a parent of two young girls and married to one I know exactly what a woman is. We don’t need to have a debate about it.”
He added: “I am going to stand up for women’s rights, whether it is the language that people are now trying to erase from public life, access to changing rooms, sports – we need to stand up for women’s rights.
“It is not bigoted or somehow narrow-minded to say that.
“As a Conservative we are going to stand up for commonsense values and we are going to do it robustly, not just as a politician but first and foremost as a dad.” Mr Sunak insisted his proposals to cut VAT on gas bills – announced yesterday – was not inflationary as it was time-limited, and suggested more prefabricated modular homes as an affordable way to tackle the housing crisis.
Mike Bramwell, a Conservative member, said: “He came across really well and convincingly. I came undecided; I am leaving decided.”
Joe Irwin, 27, another undecided Tory, said: “I am swinging towards him now, he has an answer for most questions raised. He has a lot of support.”
Dharmesh Patadia, 54, a business owner, added: “He has done wonders with the furlough scheme and Covid. His challenge now is to convince the members that his ideas work and then two years to deliver on those ideas.”
Mr Sunak also addressed the previous night’s live television debate when Talk TV’S Kate Mccann fainted in front of him and Ms Truss.
He said: “I rushed over to her, held her hand and started talking to her to make sure she is all right. She is such a pro. She was saying, ‘I want to get up, I need to keep going’.”