Conservative party MPs “don’t care about the NHS” and are apathetic about poor people, the prime minister’s senior advisor Dominic Cummings said in newly unearthed comments.
Boris Johnson’s right-hand man at Number 10 expressed the damning views at a conference in 2017, claiming the public were “correct” to believe Tory politicians didn’t care about the people who relied most upon the health service.
“People think … ‘The Tory party is run by people who basically don’t care about people like me’,” the Vote Leave mastermind was heard to say in footage obtained by The Guardian.
Mr Cummings continued: “That is what most people in the country have thought about the Tory party for decades. I know a lot of Tory MPs and I am sad to say the public is basically correct.
“Tory MPs largely do not care about these poorer people. They don’t care about the NHS. And the public has kind of cottoned on to that.”
Labour party Ian Lavery, the chair of the Labour party, called it a “staggering admission”, claiming “the Conservatives don’t care about anything apart from looking after their rich friends”.
Mr Cummings also used his 2017 Nudgestock conference speech to discuss the role of Mr Johnson and Michael Gove in the Vote Leave campaign.
He reportedly claimed they both understood the need to deliver Brexit “not only from the self-preservation point of view but also from the political smart point of view”.
The newly revealed comments come as Nigel Farage launched an astonishing personal attack on Mr Cummings.
The Brexit Party leader claimed the Downing Street adviser was not a “true believer” in the Brexit cause and remains “bound to the EU” despite all appearances to the contrary.
“He thinks we’re all cretins and members of the lower order. He has never liked me,” Mr Farage told The Times. “He can’t stand the ERG … He has huge personal enmity with the true believers in Brexit.”
Mr Farage fell out with Mr Cummings prior to the 2016 referendum when he split from the official Vote Leave group and fronted the separate Leave.EU campaign.
