Harding has picked the wrong NHS battle

BThose who work in the health service are well used to the institution being used as a political football

LOODY foreigners, eh? Coming here, saving lives, stitching our wounds. Delivering our babies and caring for our elderly. Repairing our hearts and transplanting our livers and drawing our blood and diagnosing our illnesses and treating our loved ones.

Foreigners. Can’t live with them, and literally can’t live without them.

Do the Conservatives read the news? Do they have any insight into what is happening in the country outwith their townhouses and country kitchens?

I ask because it seems extraordinary that anyone involved in politics would take a pop at NHS workers after more than a year of pandemic-fuelled gratitude for the UK’S doctors and nurses.

Those who work in the health service are well used to the institution being used as a political football, booted around the pitch by a critical opposition or used for bragging rights by a sitting government.

After months of Clap For Carers sending Britain out on to its doorsteps in praise of the work of staff during the coronavirus crisis, it was a kick in the teeth when a paltry pay rise was offered. It became a Scotland vs England wrangle when the SNP offered a higher increase for staff here.

An insulting pay offer was one thing. Out and out telling staff they’re not wanted seems a batty leap. If this leak is accurate and a fair reflection of what she intends, then to what crowd is Dido Harding pitching?

After the life peer’s miserable, multi-billion pound failure at running Test and Trace, she’s now looking to become the next head of NHS England, which is such a feat of blind confidence, it’s almost to be admired.

And yet, this seems simply more Tory cronyism, jobs for pals rather than those most qualified. Harding was chosen by her ally Matt Hancock to run Test and Trace. Hancock also has a veto on the NHS appointment by the board. She previously worked for Talktalk and moved from telecoms to chairing the quango NHS Improvement.

Part of her plan, should she secure the post, is to end NHS England’s reliance on foreign doctors and nurses.

Rightly, those within the health service were up in arms. As were those without. Some 14 per cent of NHS workers say they are not British. Among doctors that rises to 28%. They’re not stealing our jobs – we simply don’t have enough British-born bodies to staff the system.

We owe them a debt of gratitude, as was evidenced by the overwhelming slew of social media posts from people who had been helped, or whose loved ones had been helped, by doctors and nurses who come from elsewhere. And I use that turn of phrase because I’m loathe to use “foreign”, a dog whistle word for those who will be quite delighted by Ms Harding’s idea.

The NHS is understaffed, but the answer is not to offend and exclude migrant workers.

There is a lot to be said for democratising a career in medicine, for ensuring that working class young people and care experienced young people can have the same access to medical schools as middle class teenagers with generous family support.

Baroness Harding of Winscombe would have been better putting forward progressive ideas about university fees and student loans or attainment gap-narrowing initiatives than suggesting pulling up the drawbridges.

When the First Minister offered NHS Scotland staff a more generous payrise than that being put before their English counterparts, this was framed as a means of undermining Boris Johnson and using the health service as a pawn in a game of Scottish exceptionalism. While this seems jaw-dropping, it is entirely believable within a Tory framework of insular Britishness and hostility to migrants. The Conservative party doesn’t need any outside help in undermining its abilities; it’s a skilled author of its own misfortune.