NHS reform protests 'will force new U-turn'

The government will be forced into a U-turn over its sweeping plans to reform the NHS, Ed Miliband will predict today. He will tell the Welsh Labour conference in Llandudno, that the backlash which forced a climbdown over the sale of England's public forests will be dwarfed by protests over proposals to hand 80 per cent of the health budget to GPs.

The Labour leader will say: "I warn David Cameron: the ill-feeling he created over the forests will be as nothing compared to the real anger that will build about his dangerous plans. The NHS is too precious for experiments in right-wing ideology."