Today's Update On The Junior Doctors Strike From The Waugh Zone is Titled `DOCTORING THE MEDIC

* Paul Waugh

by Paul Waugh | Analysis

It’s PMQs day again and as David Cameron and Jeremy Corbyn square up, there’s a plethora of topics either could choose. The PM may not be able to resist a jibe at the Labour reshuffle and Dave Watts’ ‘croissant’ Corbynista attack (and maybe even the House of Cards pic-opp). 

For his part, Corbyn could seize on the PM’s admission of ‘hardline militants’ in his 70k Syrian moderates figure, yesterday’s terrible manufacturing and household debt figures, Sure Start cuts or water and energy company rip-offs.

But for both, it would be strange if the subject of the junior doctors’ strike didn’t crop up. The industrial action, which ended at 8am but is due to return in ratcheted form in a few weeks, has certainly had lots of politics. 

What irritates medics more than anything is what they call the ‘spin’ that lies behind the 7-day plan, pointing out many already work seven days in acute services and suggesting few non-emergency patients have an appetite for weekend treatments. No10 and Jeremy Hunt faced ‘spin’ criticism again yesterday over fresh claims higher stroke and newborn baby mortality at weekends was linked to junior doc staffing (there’s no causal link, they say).

On Labour’s stance on the strikes, the Tories scent an opportunity. Yesterday, junior shadow health minister Justin Madders said doctors had ‘no choice’ but to strike. This was welcomed by many Corbyn allies as the first time in decades Labour had backed industrial action. But Heidi Alexander was notably more cautious in her pooled clip, stating merely that Labour ‘understands’ why doctors ‘felt’ they had ‘no choice’.

Amid the acrimony, it’s currently difficult to see how the yawning gap between both sides can be bridged: neither Cameron nor Hunt sounds in any mood to back down on a manifesto pledge (believing the BMA won’t want to risk patient deaths in next month’s A&E strike) and the docs are digging in too. Yet the Guardian’s splash quotes senior sources expressing ‘cautious optimism’ a deal can be done, not least as Hunt has a new chief negotiator Sir David Dalton, ex Salford Royal chief exec.

* Paul Waugh is the Executive Editor, Politics, HuffPost UK.