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Rarely has a man so unsuited to be Secretary of State for Health so desperately wanted that job, with the unfortunate likelihood that he’ll get it
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Richard Murphy
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Great post!
Thank you
Many others profoundly disagree with your sentiments.
Wes Pilsbury Streeting is eminently suited to be Minister of (privatised) Health. Private health companies have spent (ooops “donated”) a great deal of money on/to their man. They know that he is an excellent investment (Ed: shouldn’t that be “choice”?) and his smooth delivery and happy face will convince voters that indeed the NHS is safe in Labour’s hands: & thus we have symmetry: – not only was Labour mid-wife to the NHS but now also its undertaker. The square is thus circled.
And all this democractically acheived – voters voting for it, knowingly, willingly, with happy smiling faces, as they all sing in one voice, “we want more expensive health, we want private health, Big Wes we love you” all coordinated by Labour’s outsource propaganda machine: The Guardian.
(Ed: right that’s quite enough of that, stop upsetting the Sunday afternoon with the blatant use of irony).
Ed: Thanks
Labour’s go-to propaganda machine the Guardian and the Observer! Love it! Dishonest rags! Endlessly dissembling!
stop upsetting the Sunday afternoon with the blatant use of irony).
Irony’s fine, it’s the truth people can’t handle. That means you could be upsetting more people than you thought.
Not on this page though.
Mr Lawson, sometimes things are so mad that irony (& ridicule) becomes a refuge.
Using the words of Peter Sarstedt & apologies for the mods – as applied to Pilsbury Boy
But where do you go to my lovely
When you’re alone in your bed?
Don’t tell me the thoughts that surround you
I don’t want to look inside your head, no I don’t..
“Wes Pillsbury Streeting”, I’m keeping that!
@MikeParr, I used to find your comments a bit much and crossed the line into being a bit abusive, but over the last 12 months where my anger and cynicism with Labour has grown, I now say they are absolutely right and appropriate.
Don’t encoruage him 🙂
We have form in the UK.
Rarely has a man so unsuited for the office of prime minister desperately wanted the job and got it. With a thumping majority. Some of the most unsavoury charachters have been in office lately. An unsuitable health secretary follows our home secretaries, justice secretaries, deputy prime ministers etc
Essentially the system and the people are now picking the most unsuitable of personalities.
In Physics when a system begins to breakdown it first starts oscillating heavily. There’s a line of opinion that the jet stream is doing that – becoming wavy and getting stuck etc causing long running wet or dry periods. Basically losing its form.
I think we can say the same for our politics.
Oscillating less heavily is what you meant presumably.
The holding patterns where there are prolonged warm periods of low wind, and then prolonged cooler periods of low wind, are getting longer.
I’m not quite sure the jet stream provides a useful comparison with politics.
The main impacts of climate change on the jet stream are twofold.
Firstly to increase the wind speeds increase with temperature increases, as there is more energy in the atmosphere.
Secondly, the depth of ‘deflections’ in the jet stream in mid latitudes are amplified as ‘Rossby waves’ which then make it more ‘wavy’ so we get more blocking highs.
That is actually a reinforcement of the jet stream where these omega blocks create unusual and longer lasting weather conditions – but certainly much more unpredictable in type and duration.
Please excuse the A-level geography lesson, but that was one of the higher level courses I taught.
I prefer Chantal Mouffe’s view that as hegemony grows between the mainstream parties, with neoliberal dogma often just accepted without challenge, and the parties of government become less distinguishable in terms of policy, so there is a lack of genuine differences that can be argued out, then there is more scope for extreme positions to gain traction.
I think she referred to the growth of right wing groups over the EU and Brexit, with more extreme views being presented scapegoating ‘furriners’, and very much anti-immigrant, as well as perversions of what sovereignty might mean.
I’d agree that conventional politics has become more volatile and less predictable at the margins, but that is as far as it goes relative to atmospheric processes.
Whether there is more energy in the system I’d doubt.
Mind, if we could engineer a butterfly flapping its wings in the Tropics that would then result in the displacement of Thatcherite neoliberalism, the I think there’d be quite a few more lepidopterists.
Thanks
You are right Tony.
I meant that systems instead of holding a stable pattern they begin to hold extreme patterns. You are right though the analogy isn’t a great one as our politics is holding an extreme pattern on one side, not both sides therefore not really oscillating.
However i see both the jet stream and our politics on the beginning of a breakdown. No empirical evidence for it but lots of correlations on each and just my gut feel. (Hopefully not my despair).
I miss these conversations in the pub with like minded people!
Would be interested to know if you think if there is evidence that the AMOC will weaken in the next two or three decades. (Ocean and pole temperatures being off the scale etc).
But no explanation of how LINO are going to achieve this target.
The UK still labours under the Puritan curse of the sick, unemployed, poor are the undeserving poor and are a burden to the state.
So true
SPONTANEOUS PRODUCTIVITY IMPROVEMENTS LEADING TO GROWTH!!!!!
Sorry for shouting, but I think that seems to be the fundamental plan of Starmer and co. The only apparent plan, in fact.
A lot of smug people in the UK!
Streeting’s plan to fix the NHS seems to be paying its exhausted staff more overtime. Apparently he completely ignores how burned out most NHS workers are; paying them more to burn out faster is not a policy with a high chance of success.
Agreed
Totally absurd
Starmer has long made clear his disdain for the chronically sick, disabled and elderly along with their carers. You absolutely highlight this so clearly Richard.
The fact is, Private health care cannot support disabled people because the cost is so high particularly those with complex and multiple needs. Where’s the profit in that?
I have a meeting with Vicky Fox Shadow Disabilities minister in June for Carer’s week. I suspect that it is only being held because the Lib Dems have made such a strong campaign highlighting the Carer’s overpayment scandal that Labour has so far been slow to comment on or indeed commit to reforming carer’s benefits to prevent the scandal rolling on into yet another Government.
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/dwp-faces-watchdog-investigation-over-153537060.html
It is good that she is engaging with carers; but if Starmer and Streeting won’t commit to removing the two child limit to alleviate child poverty; it’s not looking good for carers should Labour take the next election. Of course, we wouldn’t need carers if we had properly funded and affordable social care, health care and special needs education in schools…
Thanks