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Kemi Badenoch said Sir Keir Starmer will not listen to Tory demands to ban doctors from going on strike because he “doesn’t have the baubles” to confront his union paymasters. Junior doctors are set to cripple the NHS with a five-day strike that started on Wednesday over yet more demands for eye-watering pay rises.

While Sir Keir has condemned the strikes, the Tories have slammed him for encouraging further walkouts by giving the British Medical Association a huge pay rise last year without any strings attached. Mrs Badenoch skewered him at Prime Minister’s Questions, demanding he put patients first and ban doctors from going on strike – similar to rules that apply to police and the military. She added with a festive twist: “Of course he’s not going to ban doctors’ strikes – he doesn’t have the baubles!”

“We all know who’s running their party, and it’s not him. The trade unions didn’t just buy him for Christmas, they bought him for life.

“And this matters for all those people out there facing a difficult new year. The Prime Minister has lost control.”

Sir Keir refused to back banning doctors from striking, but condemned the BMA’s latest walkout as “dangerous and utterly irresponsible”.

He added: “My message to resident doctors is to work with us to improve conditions and rebuild the NHS.

However, he hit back that the Tories had left the NHS “on its knees”.

Speaking at the Commons’ Health Select Committee this morning, Health Secretary Wes Streeting said it would have been unfair to give in to the BMA’s pay rise demands to avert this week’s latest strike.

He insisted: “At the moment we’re entirely focused on getting the NHS through the next five days of industrial action.

“I’m probably just as, if not more, worried about the weeks that follow, because frankly, the consultants getting us through the next five days are the consultants we would normally be asking to put in extra shifts, extra effort to get us through the usual new year peak pressures.

“They’re going to be more knackered as a result.

“I feel that weight of responsibility to and for them. It is dicey … I think we’re off to a decent start, but this is going to be a challenging five days and a really challenging few weeks.

“We’re doing everything we can to keep the show on the road.”