Tories’ 2019 NHS promises may come back to bite them

Party succeeded in neutralising' issue of public services with generous promises that are now unmet and unrepeatable

• NHS will be Tories' achilles heel' at next election, ministers warned

As the politician most closely associated with the 350m a week for the NHS" Brexit bus, Boris Johnson went into the 2019 general election campaign making a series of big-spending promises on health, as well as education and policing.

Prof Rob Ford, of Manchester University, co-author of the definitive British General Elections of 2019 book, says these pledges were part of a strategy by the Tories to neutralise" public services - where Labour tend to be strong - as an electoral issue.