Floundering Rishi Sunak has claimed the UK would still be stuck in Covid lockdown if Keir Starmer was in charge - without any evidence.
The Prime Minister bungled his Boris Johnson-style attack during PMQs as he battled criticism over his Government's refusal to meet nursing unions over pay.
Almost nowhere in the world is left in lockdown - and even Communist China's President Xi is coming under mounting pressure to ease the country's remaining measure.
The Labour leader urged Mr Sunak to prevent nurses from walking out across the country on Thursday by accepting the RCN's demands for serious talks over pay.
He said: "As ever with this PM, it's Tory politics first, patients second.
"We've never seen a nurses strike like this before but they've been forced into it because the Government has broken the health system."
Mr Sunak rejected his criticism and insisted the Government was already recruiting thousands of doctors and nurses.
The PM said: "He asks about the backlog in the NHS and yet what he always fails to acknowledge is the impact Covid did - that's why we're facing pressures.
"We do have a plan, not just more money, not just more doctors and nurses, new diagnostic centres carrying out millions of checks and scans, new surgical hubs delivering more elective surgeries.
"But if we'd listened to him, the backlog would still be growing and that's because we would still be in lockdown."
Mr Starmer hit back, saying: "As usual, he tries to blame everyone else."
Ex-PM Mr Johnson was fond of accusing Labour of being resistant to leaving lockdown - despite the fact that members of his own Cabinet were divided throughout the pandemic about the levels of restrictions.
The last Covid lockdown in England ended on July 19 2021 - nearly 18 months ago.
It comes as the Labour leader accused the Prime Minister of entering "hibernation" rather than working to get Thursday's first ever nationwide strike of nurses called off.
All Mr Sunak needs to do to avert the strikes is to "open the door and discuss pay with them", Mr Starmer said,
"If he did, the whole country would breathe a sigh of relief. Why won't he?"
Mr Sunak insisted his Government has "consistently spoken to all the unions involved in all the pay disputes" amid a wave of action this winter.
But he conceded there are "millions" of people who will have their care disrupted because of the industrial action in the NHS.
Labour ex-minister mocked the Conservative Party's "year of chaos" with a play on the Christmas carol 'The Twelve Days of Christmas'.
Dame Angela Eagle told the Commons: "This year, the Tory party has given us five education secretaries, four chancellors, three prime ministers, two leadership coups and the partridge has had to sell the pear tree to pay the gas bill."
As MPs erupted in laughter, she added: "Isn't it the case that after a year of Tory chaos, incompetence and self-indulgence, the best Christmas present the Prime Minister could give to the British people is a general election?"
Mr Sunak replied: "When it comes to what the British people need this Christmas, in order to ease the disruption on their lives, the best thing that the party opposite could do is tell their union bosses to call off these damaging strikes."
