A NURSE who did a job swap with a Daily Telegraph columnist has admitted she has never had to work so hard.
For a TV documentary, Nikki Hollis, who works shifts at Barts in London, swapped roles with the Telegraph’s Donna Sheridan, who spends almost an hour writing her weekly column complaining about workshy Britain and tea-drinking NHS skivers.
Hollis said: “After a week racking my brains trying to write an 800-word column made up out of thin air, my hat is off to these right-wing ranters. I don’t know how they do it.
“I wrote a piece on Monday, an account of a day in the life of a nurse working a winter shift. The editor knocked it back, saying it was ‘loony left propaganda’, ‘insufficiently mean-spirited’ and ‘not bonkers’.
“So I tried again. I put myself in the mind of a Donna Sheridan and wrote some absolute garbage about nurses spending most of their days filling out dubious expenses claims and only visiting food banks to have food fights after work while patients languish in corridors.
“The editor said it still wasn’t spiteful and ill-informed enough. I had sleepless nights asking myself ‘What would Allison Pearson, Janet Daley or Isabel Oakeshott write?’
“I just couldn’t do it. I’m relieved to back on the wards, doing easy stuff like saving lives. Our right-wing columnists are miracle workers.”
