A former Tory minister faced broad ridicule this morning, over his suggestion for tackling NHS backlogs.
John Redwood, previously most famous for pretending to know the Welsh national anthem, took to Twitter early this morning with his plan for fixing the health service.
“We hear how the NHS is short of beds,” he wrote at 6.43am.
“Why don’t managers put more in?”
The Wokingham MP, whose Twitter account is not a parody, had previously been on a tear against NHS managers, of whom he asked: “Why do they not fill vacancies? Why do they use so many agency staff?”
NHS nurses have been on strike this week because their wages have fallen by 8% in real terms since Mr Redwood’s party came to power in 2010.
A survey in August revealed the most common reason for nurses leaving the profession was low levels of pay.
Responses to the suggestion on the social network were quite uncomplimentary.
One user branded it “the stupidest tweet of the year” - beating out stiff competition from Elon Musk and Kanye West to take the top spot.
Another wrote: “I reckon they should just make all the people better, then they won’t need beds.”
“You know other people can see this, right?” another Twitter user quipped.
Nearly 5,000 people had replied to the tweet within a few hours of it being posted - many of them trying to explain the economics of universal health provision to the former Minister - some of them just posting cry laughing emojis.
Sir John, who was a key ally of Liz Truss during her leadership campaign, has called for Rishi Sunak to make sure the Conservative Party “regains its reputation for economic competence.”
