TORY MP Huw Merriman broke ranks with his party yesterday to join junior doctors on a picket line as repayment for their “beautiful” care during a recent hospital stay.

He visited medics picketing St Thomas’s Hospital in Westminster, where he was treated for the achilles injury he sustained playing for Parliament’s football team.

The Bexhill & Battle MP also showed solidarity with junior doctors staging a permanent sit-down protest outside the Department of Health.