Tory Minister Smears NHS Doctor

She might have come second in Labour’s deputy leadership contest, but Rosena Allin-Khan has little time to celebrate: after an appeal went out from the NHS, and Parliament went into recess, she returned to front-line duty as a hospital doctor. This, it might have been thought, would stop even Tories attacking her. But it seems that thought was misplaced, because one Tory has been doing exactly that. More than once.

To no surprise at all, the Tory dishing it out is Mid Bedfordshire MP (yes, it’s her again) Nadine Dorries, who is also supposed to be Health Minister for Patient Safety, Suicide Prevention and Mental Health. That a Government minister could be seen openly attacking a hospital doctor might not be seen as a good look was, it seems, not allowed to enter.

Last Week, Dr Rosena concluded “After only self-isolating for 7 days, @MattHancock should not be giving this press briefing in-person today. He should be following the @WHO guidelines and self-isolating for 14 days. He's standing a few feet away from the Medical Director of NHS England. This is irresponsible”. Ms Dorries wasn’t having any of that.

“You are absolutely wrong and should know the guidance backwards. You self isolate from the first day of symptoms, for seven days. [Matt Hancock] has followed the official guidance to the letter, feels fighting fit and has been working full time throughout”.

Dr Rosena reminded her “Nadine, you're a Health Minister in a Government which is refusing to follow [World Health Organisation] advice. Can you categorically confirm that you have scientific proof which says people are not infectious if they only self-isolate for 7 days?” Given so many ministers have contracted Covid-19, she is right to be concerned.

But scientific proof came there none. Instead, today Ms Dorries got on her hypocritical high horse as the Labour leadership result came in. “The Labour Party membership will never, ever, elect a woman as leader- for the same reason the party is fundamentally antisemitic. For all their talk of equality and progression, regardless of leader, it remains a backward looking socialist party of yesterday”. Who was this talking about anti-Semitism?

It was, whisper it quietly, the same MP who had compared a then Lib Dem MP to a Nazi concentration camp doctor. A then MP who is Jewish. Nadine Dorries has no room to call anti-Semitism on anyone. And she’s still supposed to be a Government minister.

Nor was she letting her attitude to Dr Rosena drop. After Joe Murphy of the Evening Standard had noted the Doctor’s runner-up result in the Labour deputy leadership contest, back she came. “If that’s the case, I will welcome and congratulate her but advise her to brush up on the [coronavirus] guidance as decided by [Chief Medical Officer, England] that everyone in the UK is adhering to. She didn’t have a clue what it was only two days ago and that is seriously worrying”. She wasn’t quoting him. She was quoting the WHO.

What should be seriously worrying the Government is that one of its junior ministers is indulging in petty and vindictive attacks on a front-line NHS practitioner at a time when that same Government is publicly proclaiming its support for the NHS and its staff.

Even more worrying is that Ms Dorries appears unable to figure that out for herself.

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