If Wes Streeting is the answer, is the question 'can Labour do even worse?' I ask, because the previous round of hostile briefing/leadership speculation has whetted the appetite for more. Saturday saw a big Times splash on two coded criticisms Streeting made of Keir Starmer and the Number 10 operation. This government is too technocratic, and presents itself as "the maintenance department for the country." He later added that ministers shouldn't do the broadcast rounds with a "shopping list" of achievements because they do not capture the popular imagination. A friends of Wes, enjoying the shield of anonymity, added that Starmer is steering the country into the catastrophe of a Reform-led government. Only a new leader and a change of course can avert the coming cataclysm.
Nothing to dispute here. Since Starmer became the leader of the Labour Party, he has dispersed the party's coalition of voters. A process that has accelerated in office. Not because of inevitable disappointments, but thanks to stupid and counter-productive strategies. Who, for instance, did Rachel Reeves think would be impressed by taking winter fuel payments off most pensioners? The bond markets? The very ones who were quite happy with her recent fairly Labourish budget? Likewise, the effort at leapfrogging Reform to nullify refugees and channel crossings as a toxic issue is not winning anyone over, nor keeping what's left of Labour's support from dwindling further.
Does Streeting offer a break from this? It's all very well talking about a "change of direction", but in Streeting's case past behaviour is the best indicator of future behaviour. Is he going to stop the race to the gutter? Will he abandon Starmer's efforts to water down the European Convention? I doubt it. Streeting turned on trans people when he believed it was politic to do so, and he can barely conceal his contempt for normal people - most recently, resident doctors - who stand up to him. He's made no bones about being private health's man in the NHS, drafting in Alan Milburn to show their business is his business. He has the dishonest streak customary on the Labour right, and is the Blairiest of Sir Tony's epigoni in cabinet. Is this really what Labour are putting their hopes in?
True, Streeting doesn't sound like a wooden top when he speaks. But politically, there is no difference between him, the hapless Prime Minister and, if we're brutally honest, the other leading contender for the job. Labour's problem is political, and therefore theirs is a crisis of politics. Swapping out the PM for Streeting won't make any difference, because he's committed to the exact same trajectory. If things carry on as they are, in years to come Starmer will be remembered as Labour's last ever election winner. If Streeting makes it to Downing Street, he'll become the leader that took the party to its worst ever defeat.
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3 comments:
Chris Dillow’s centrist fallacy is appropriate here. Namely, if competent people were in charge all will be well.
[In case this isn’t obvious, competent people in charge of a dysfunctional system will not make any noticeable difference]
Watch our Darren, hes a dark horse of actual competance..
I've heard it suggested that Streeting has been taking advice on running the health service via ouija board, from one Harold Shipman. Principle case in point being the slashing of training requirements for practicing anaesthetists. What could go wrong?
Perhaps he figures that as long as he has moved on to bigger things when that one blows up, so that enough people forget that it was his watch, then he can avoid leapfrogging Matt Hancock in the Secretary of Death leaderboards.
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