Jeremy Hunt accuses Stephen Hawking of peddling a ‘pernicious falsehood’ after the top physicist claimed Tories are trying to privatise the NHS

‘Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt sensationally accused Stephen Hawking of lying yesterday in a heated war of words over the future of the NHS.
Mr Hunt said Professor Hawking was guilty of making a ‘pernicious falsehood’ in claiming that the Government wanted to replace the National Health Service with a US-style system of medical insurance.
He was speaking ahead of last night’s lecture by the world-renowned scientist at the Royal Society of Medicine in London on the state of the Health Service. On Friday, the cosmologist claimed ‘that the direction of change [in the UK] is towards a US-style insurance system’.
Professor Hawking, a lifelong Labour supporter, also accused Mr Hunt of ‘cherry picking’ evidence in favour of seven-day working to help him push through the new junior doctors’ contract.’
Read more: Jeremy Hunt accuses Stephen Hawking of peddling a ‘pernicious falsehood’ after the top physicist claimed Tories are trying to privatise the NHS