In the maelstrom of news about wars, fragile banks and riots in Paris, an item somehow slipped me by.
Maybe I was blindsided by BoJo’s mea-culpa, or maybe I should say, non-mea-culpa. Perhaps I was focussed on the brutality of OFSTED.
Anyway, I missed it. But I’ve caught up.
Silly-Boy Streeting has done it again.
He’s got form. As you know.
He lambasted NHS managers and spent weeks trying to row back. He said they were paid too much. It turned out he is paid more than most managers in the NHS and for that matter, social care.
If we really wanted to do a comparability study of the value of work, its impact on society and add in pressure, levels of responsibility, I think the Lollipop Lady would score better than Silly-Boy… never mind NHS managers.
Managers who deliver more for less. Year on year.
Not content with that, he had a go at GPs and came close enough to denouncing them as idle as to make no difference. A 'something for nothing culture', he said.
His big policy trick has been to promise to recruit hundreds more nurses and doctors working in the NHS. He’ll pay for it by changing the tax rules for non-dom’s.
Any one with that kind of money will be long-gone before Charmer moves into No10.
I’m told the Isle of Man is doing a nice line in non-dom status.
Silly-Boy's latest lip-slip is to announce that the Labour Party does not support the junior doctor’s strike.
I don’t know how I missed it. But I did and here it is.
Up until that point the Labour Party, when pressed about strikes, had always deployed the ‘lost motorist’s defence’…
'… a motorist is lost in the one-way system in Dublin. He opens the window and asks a pedestrian: ‘ Can you tell me the way to Tipperary, please? The pedestrian answers; ‘Well, I wouldn’t start from here.’
Tell me Ms Labour person, how would you deal with the strikes in the NHS… 'I wouldn’t start from here', is the answer.
Then they go trailing off into the importance of talking and blah, blah.
The upshot, they wouldn’t pay the nurses 19% nor the junior doctors 35%, but dare not say it.
Now it’s official. Labour does not support industrial action. They seem to have overlooked their roots. Embarrassed by their history? Disowning their raison-d’être?
Until Silly-Boy’s act of clarity there’s been a purple fog around what Labour actually believe. I say purple because it is half red and half blue.
That’s Labour’s dilemma.
For fear of saying something that might upset the middle England swing voters, the red wall and biz-bosses, they say nothing of importance.
Until now, that is. SB's policy announcement.
Labour are tip-toeing towards the next election and have a big lead in the opinion polls that looks rock solid. But…
What if Sunak manages to stop the small boats? Cuts waiting lists and stabilises the economy... voter's three top concerns. He has time.
I have no idea what Charmer’s policy really is on the boats? Nor the economy and we all know, non-Dom’s won’t fix the NHS.
It seems to me Labour don't have even a homeopathic dose of policy ready to dispense.
If Sunak can shrug off the recent past and find a hybrid political identity he may well give the Charmer a run for his money.
YouGov’s tracker tells us,18% think Labour will win the next general election with a large majority. However, 10% think the Conservatives will retain power but with a small majority.
There’s more…
… the 2023 Boundary Review’s recommendations are due this summer. Overlay the 2019 election results on the new boundaries and it might mean the Conservatives would have gained six more seats. Labour look set to have more marginals.
One thing is certain. Labour are aiming for a post Corbyn platform.
Dunno about you but I like the idea of repairing the highways, making broadband a public utility, sorting out social care with a National Care Service and I could be persuaded to bring the trains back into public ownership… most of them are anyway.
If you're going to Glastonbury and you come to grief, this is the volunteer groupwho will look after you. The organisers pay them to be there. They donate their fees to medical aid charities overseas. Here's what they'redoing in Uganda. Dig deep!
>> I'm hearing - Simon Weldon has been named CEO of South East Coast Ambulance Service Foundation Trust. Good luck!
>> I'm hearing - NHS will miss its April deadline to end 78-week waits by around 11k patients. Nevertheless, given all the agro that's going on, it's pretty heroic.
