Tory chairman’s ‘NHS strikes help Putin’ claim dismissed as ‘ludicrous’

Nadhim Zahawi urges nurses to call off strikes and negotiate but union says it is ministers who are refusing to talk

The Conservative party chairman, Nadhim Zahawi, has been accused of insulting NHS workers with a ludicrous" suggestion that it is the wrong time to strike over low pay because it would help Vladimir Putin divide the west.

Zahawi told broadcasters that nurses should call off their strikes and abandon their pay demands because it risked playing into the hands of the Russian president, who he said wanted to fuel inflation in the west.