UK general election 2019: Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn in NHS war of words on day one of campaign

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Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn clashed over the NHS this afternoon — as the Christmas election veered away from Brexit on day one.

To the dismay of Tory MPs, the final question time clash in the Commons between the PM and the Labour leader, right, was dominated by the sensitive battleground of the health service and the price of vital drugs.

Mr Corbyn came out fighting by alleging that the Tories were secretly plotting “a sellout deal with Donald Trump” that would “mean more NHS money being siphoned off into private profit”. He hammered the same questions over and over, making clear that the post-Brexit US trade deal will be a key Labour attack line.

Mr Johnson, who was greeted with loud cheers from the Tory benches, denied the claim and trumpeted “record” sums being ploughed into 40 new hospitals and new treatments under his Government.

Boris Johnson during Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday
PRU/AFP via Getty Images

“He would ruin the economy and he would ruin our ability to fund the NHS,” said the Tory leader of his rival. The exchange was an unwelcome reminder to Tory and Labour MPs already nervous of the first winter election in nearly a century that the campaign could easily run out of their control.

Mr Corbyn fired back that the Tory NHS boost amounted to six new hospitals not 40.

Mr Johnson finished by steering onto his core election message that a Corbyn win would mean “drift and dither” plus two more referendums — on Brexit and Scottish independence. But the verdict of many observers was that Mr Corbyn had kept the ball for longer.

Jeremy Corbyn speaks during Prime Minister's Questions
PA

In other key developments today:

  • Amber Rudd was told by the Tory Chief Whip that she would not be allowed back into the party. Earlier she told the Evening Standard that she will leave Parliament at the election and that she hoped to stand down as a Tory. Her departure from the Commons brings the tally of MPs who have confirmed they will stand down to 51.
  • Two Brexit rebels said they would stand as Independents against the Conservatives: former attorney general 
  • Dominic Grieve in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, and Antoinette Sandbach in Eddisbury, Cheshire. 
  • Up to 20 London seats were said by experts to be up for grabs in an election tipped to be one of the most unpredictable in modern times.

In an email to supporters this morning, Mr Johnson donned his One Nation mantle and said: “Stand with me, and together we can get Britain back on the road to a brighter future.” He argued: “We need this election to break the deadlock in Parliament ... Only then will we be able to move on and focus on the people’s priorities.

“We simply can’t afford any more dither and delay, brought on by Jeremy Corbyn and Labour.”

Writing to his backers, Mr Corbyn played a class-war card saying: “We both know Britain is run for the selfish interests of the top 1 per cent. Our government works only for the ultra-rich, our media is in their pockets, and our systems are rigged to make their lives better and ours worse. This isn’t fair. But we can make it fair.”

Many MPs were privately gloomy about being compelled to fight the first December election since 1923.

Senior members of the 1922 Committee of Tory backbenchers are understood to have made their misgivings clear to No 10. Many feared voters would refuse to answer the door on dark winter nights. Polling day is on Thursday December 12, six weeks away.

Shadow chancellor John McDonnell admitted that agreeing to the election was “the only choice” available to his party after the SNP and the Liberal Democrats backed a snap polling day. But he added: “I think we’ll have a majority government by Christmas, so I can’t think of a better Christmas present, basically.”

Health Secretary Matt Hancock said the Tories are offering people a “positive, optimistic, One Nation agenda” which he thinks can bring the country together.

Speaking about the NHS, he said it can only be funded properly if there is a strong economy. “So it’s this combination that essentially is at the core of my politics and at the core of the Prime Minister’s politics and at the core of the proposals we’re putting to the public, which is you’ve got to have this strong free market economy that generates the jobs, therefore generates the tax revenues that can help to pay for world-class public services,” he said.

Liberal Democrat leader Jo Swinson said her party’s “stop Brexit” message was resonating with Remainers. “People recognise our consistency and standing up for what we believe in,” she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

Ms Swinson added: “I don’t think that the choice that we are being offered between Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn is anywhere near good enough. Neither of those men are fit to lead our country and be prime minister.”

Lord O’Shaughnessy, a former Downing Street policy director, said the kind of swing voters whom the Tories need to win over are in towns such as Workington and “rugby league towns” in the North. “That is where any electoral majority is going to be won,” he said.

Conservative former cabinet minister Sir Patrick McLoughlin has also announced that he will be standing down from Parliament.

Lord Evans, former director general of MI5 from 2007 to 2013, told an event hosted by the Policy Exchange think tank that it is “hard to see any security upside” after Brexit. He was part of a panel in London today discussing how crime and security strategies could be affected when Britain leaves the EU.

Security minister Brandon Lewis said the Prime Minister’s deal involved a “really ambitious programme to have a really strong relationship around security” with Europe after Brexit.

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