Dan Poulter MP has resigned from the Tories, crossed the floor of the Commons, and joined Labour.
Once upon a time this might have taken courage. It might have also delivered a particular political message. I do not think either of these is true in the case of the little known Poulter, who is not seeking a return to the Commons when he leaves Parliament at his own choice at the forthcoming general election.
Poulter, who is MP for North Ipswich and Central Suffolk, is also a hospital consultant. He says he is quitting because only Labour now believes in the NHS. If I might be polite, I think he is quitting so that he has at least some credibility with colleagues when he returns to full time work in the NHS later this year. To have been a Tory MP and find anyone to talk to would, I suspect, have been nigh on impossible if he had not quit the Tories now. By quitting now he might just find someone willing to have coffee with, if he's lucky, on his return. I think the politics involved in this are no more complicated than that.
Please forgive my cynicism, but being a former Tory MP is not going to look good on the CVs of a lot of redundant former members fairly soon. At least Poulter might have a job to go to. But he also wants people to talk to.
Let me add another, necessary, cynical note. Moving from being a Tory MP for the last 14 years - who has held office and who has no doubt voted many times to impose untold harm on the very people whom he will no doubt soon be seeing as patients - to Labour is really not so very hard these days. Labour is almost certainly to the political right now of where Poulter might have thought himself to be when he was first elected to parliament in 2010. I should think he feels quite at home with Wes Streeting. A job as a junior Labour health minister in the Lords might well be on offer, I would have thought.
So is this a move of any political significance? No, not really. This is about self preservation, cynical manoeuvring and keeping some doors just a little bit open as far as I can see. Might we be spared a by further analysis?
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
Buy me a coffee!
Yes, exactly. Poulter says in the Observer that he envisages a role advising the Labour Party on its policies on mental health while focusing more on his NHS work.
“Yes, exactly. Poulter says in the Observer that he envisages a role advising the Labour Party on its …mental health”
There, fixed it for you.
Compare and contrast
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/apr/23/retired-uk-gp-suspended-for-five-months-over-climate-activism
So why is it that a (retired) Doctor who goes on a Climate Change protest gets disciplined while a Doctor who has served as a minister in a Government that had damaged the provision of healthcare in the UK & targeted the sick is of no interest to the powers that be?
Please explain.
Hadn’t realised the GMC was now an arm of Reform UK!
https://www.reformparty.uk/energy-and-environment
Repentant sinners should be welcomed and good faith assumed or we deny any possibility of conversion. I think his indication that he will not stand again is sufficient to afford some benefit of the doubt. Not everything leaving a sinking ship is a rat.
I might think what you’ve articulated but casting stones won’t encourage others to follow. And if you think Labour doesn’t have people with flexible principles I have a bridge at a good price.
Richard generally I like yourr work on tax policy etc. but every now and then you post comments that really disappoint me. Unless you have good evidence of your accusations I do not forgive your cynicism. This is the sort of thing I would expect in right wing MSM. Please reflect.
We will have to disagree, because reading between the lines I think this a deeply cynical move. Even the MSM were discussing whether Labour had already made an offer this morning. I am not alone.
“but every now and then you post comments that really disappoint me.”
Mr. Murphy,
Please continue to post whatever you damn well want to post! I want to hear what you have to say, i.e. your opinion, on any topic you care to opinionate on.
Thank you
I will, knowing I am bound to upset someone sometimes. Even me, sometimes, in retrospect.
Surely the only question to ask is “why did he wait so long?”
What he cites as his reasons for defecting have been apparent to most for rather a long time.
Agreed
Hence my cynicism.
I have a little more sympathy for Poulter. He is quitting politics at the election. The fact is that even given the over-representation of Conservatives in politics because of FPTP, Conservatism is a form of orthodoxy in politics in England. In Scotland the Conservatives have not been a majority, even with FPTP since the 1950s. They are now almost wholly dependent on a gerontocratic membership and electorate, running out of time; offering a haven for young opportunists or ill-informed dogmatists. They are Increasingly unelectable, and survive on a menu of relentless division and both fake and real outrage, that nobody of sense can even distinguish anymore. They are a completely lost cause; a recapitulation of all the inadequacies of Jacobitism; nostalgic for a past everyone else is trying to forget.
Conservatives are far more mainstream in England. When they show some humility and acknowledgement of failure, like Poulter, I would give them doorstep room in first instance. It costs nothing, even if the gesture proves a disappointment. It may even prove positive. The Poulters will still be there in mubers, whatever happens. That is just a fact we all require to live with and come to terms, one way or another; and there are a lot of worse ways to do so, than give them a cautious, temporary and conditional hearing.
But are we sure he is really quitting?
I thought he had made that statement. Perhaps I have missed something. I read it somewhere in the media; which of course means nothing at all. What can I say? Trust nobody? Trust nothing? Ever. Since this is Britain, of course; spin, distortion, Delphic manipulation is the norm, zero trust that anything is true will certainly work…….
Per the BBC:
“Dr Poulter said he would sit as a Labour MP until the general election and then stand down.”
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-68913287
The BBC statement is what I read. I confess I took it at face value; he could change his mind of course, but the recovery of reputation after that might prove tricky …..
What Dr. Dan’s motives are any intelligent observer is likely to form an informed guess. Small surprise.
The aspect of this which I do find both sinister and repellent, are the motivations and reactions of the ‘Labour’ leadership. “Labour is known to be keen to use Poulter’s inside knowledge to maximum effect” says the Guardian’s website – making it clear the main interest is peeking into Tory election plans – while the odious Streeting is no doubt among the “highest levels” of the Labour leadership which are reported to have been trailing Dr Dan as having “advisory roles in the future in developing the party’s health policies”.
WHY? Have they been short of actual patients to advise them? Are there no cohorts of exhausted and under-valued doctors, nurses and more who could most appropriately be filling such roles? Whatever Dr Dan’s state of grace or sincerity, for which nobler souls than I may pray – why give a hoot, let alone a “role” to a man – a doctor dealing with mental health no less! – who has been art and part and as a Minister, in the party and government which has created the current disaster.
It’s a bit like asking Fujitsu to advise on a new public contract…. Oh!… wait a minute….
All so true..
Dan Poulter ,when he was a health minister, cut the numbers of trainee doctors because the medical profession worried about a surplus of doctors undermining their profession. Those numbers have hardly budged despite announcements of extra in the future.
In my view he is a mole for the medical profession looking to position themselves with influence with the next Labour government.
After looking at the theyworkforyou website (an invaluable resource) and a few other places, I disagree.
First off, he’s been back working part time for a while now. It would be a bit late for such a gesture.
My initial assumption was that he just wanted to stay in a ruling party. The fact he’s planning on stepping down obviously nixes that. He’s definitely on the moderate side and while I’m sure he’s toed the party line on a lot of matters, he has campaigned on the topics he knows and cares about (mainly mental healthcare and the NHS). He initially stopped practising as a doctor because he didn’t believe striking was ethical, but has since changed his mind and supported the nurses strike.
I was all set up ready to despise the man, but it actually does seem like the reality of the modern Tory Party has completely disillusioned him to Conservative politics. It’s not a place for anyone with any principles anymore, no matter how flexible.
“It’s not a place for anyone with any principles anymore, no matter how flexible.”
This is also true of the old Republican party (now dead) in the USA since the arrival of Trump and his MAGA hanger-ons.