Singer Rod Stewart has made an unlikely intervention in British politics – calling in to a live TV broadcast to express his alarm at the state of the NHS, and suggest he would not be voting Tory again.
The global superstar, 78, phoned into Sky News’s “your say” segment, which covered people sharing their experience of healthcare, in an unscheduled appearance.
Asked about nurses going on strike for better pay and conditions, Stewart said: “I personally have been a Tory for a long time. But I think this government should stand down now and give the Labour Party a go at it, because this is heartbreaking for the nurses. It really is heartbreaking.
“In all my years of living in this country, I’ve never seen it so bad. Anything I can do to help … go on, the nurses. I’m on your side.”
Stewart said he had attended a private clinic on Thursday that was basically “empty” and was prompted to call in to the show after hearing about the “ridiculous” situation in the NHS.
“There are people dying because they cannot get scans,” he said.
Stewart offered to pay for 10 or 20 hospital scans after patients spoke about experiencing long waiting lists in the NHS.
A Labour source told HuffPost UK: Source: “It’s clear that with Keir Starmer’s leadership, Labour is finally giving the whole country Reason To Believe.”
