Starmer accuses Tories of leaving England’s health service ‘broken’

Prime Minister Keir Starmer accused his Conservative predecessors of leaving England's health service "broken" in his latest bid to shape the political narrative ahead of what is expected to be a challenging budget proposal next month.

Successive Tory-led administrations had caused "unforgivable" harm to the National Health Service in the 14 years before his Labour Party's landslide election win in July, Starmer said in the interview with the BBC scheduled to air on Sunday.

It was just the latest in a series of public appearances by the prime minister in which he's tried to deflect blame for the UK's escalating problems away from Labour.

“Everybody watching this who has used the NHS, or whose relatives have, knows that it’s broken,” Starmer said, according to excerpts released on Saturday. “That is unforgivable, the state of our NHS.”

This comes ahead of a report, expected on Sept. 12, that concludes the reforms under Conservative Health Secretary Andrew Lansley in 2012 were "hopelessly misconceived." Starmer said the review, by renowned surgeon Dr Ara Darzi, would reveal that too many children are "being let down" by the NHS.

The NHS, established under Prime Minister Clement Attlee's Labour government after World War II, has long been a pivotal issue in British politics. Its recent pressures - underlined by the increased waiting time for doctor's appointments since the Covid pandemic - have been one of the main factors contributing to a belief that the British state is in disarray.

But while Starmer has promised to improve public services, he has little money to devote to them, as Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves weighs raising taxes and cutting the budget to pay for what she says is a £22 billion ($29 billion) "black hole" that the Conservatives left in the current year's budget. Starmer warned last month that Reeves's first fiscal plan on Oct. 30 would be "painful."

Victoria Atkins, the Conservatives' shadow health secretary, said that Labour's criticism of the Conservatives' record was nothing more than political opportunism. “Labour’s instinct is to politicise children’s health, rather than provide solutions and reform our NHS,” she said in a statement.