I noticed this BBC headline yesterday:
Streeting says he is ashamed of NHS winter problems
So he should be, of course. Labour could have got more funding to the NHS by now to deal with this crisis. Streeting knows that. So why did he speak out yesterday?
I think Streeting is realising that he has a problem and a choice to make. Either Rachel Reeves keeps her election promise to avoid borrowing or he keeps his promise to improve the NHS, but both cannot be achieved.
He is not alone. This is now the dilemma facing almost every Cabinet minister.
I was in the Palace of Westminster last night, talking to quite a number of MPs, not all from labour by any means. But I get a sense trouble is brewing. The realisation that Labour can either be the government these MPs and those who voted for them want, or it can be a cold-hearted financial manager delivering what no one desires within rules it will not change and which are obviously rigged against the interests of the people of this country is growing.
I think Wes Streeting has smelt the coffee and is already reacting. He's put down a marker to Keir Starner. It's either Rachel Reeves or him who will have to go, and he's making clear what he thinks.
I could, of course, be wrong. But I doubt I am. There is disquiet in the camp. The likelihood that Reeves will survive 2026 is, I think, low. Labour MPs are going to demand her sacking as the symbolic price of Labour's failure to deliver by then. That may be too late for the voters. To keep them happy, Starmer might have to move sooner. But I think there is a whole Cabinet of people out there gunning for Reeves, and I very much doubt that both she and Starmer can survive this, and Starmer is plenty ruthless enough to realise what he will have to do.
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Was Torsten Bell there?
I wonder what he makes of Reeves and her positions?
No
He wants to be Chancellor.
Ah the Labour government has encountered the “niche construction theory” of ecologists. You can have “fitness for all” as opposed to the few if you adapt the environment that “all” live in as opposed to expecting the “all” to adopt to an environment which in fact isn’t natural (whatever that word means) despite the Neoliberal pretence but man-made largely by the rich few!
If the government can find £4 billion to give for-profit private health companies it can certainly properly fund the NHS!
I understood that the money going to the Private HealthCare sector will be coming from NHS Trust budgets. Ditto the money for the new diagnostic centres. – ie another large nail in the NHS coffin.
Anyone would think that Streeting is wanting the NHS to fail and the Private Sector to move in.
I wonder, sometimes, how secure Starmer feels; how many Labour MPs are thinking about their leader? I feel he is just as responsible for the state of the UK as Reeves. So, just extrapolate…. possible or likely?
Hmmmmm………….the risk here is that Labour may tear itself apart and that might be seized upon by Reform and the Tories whom I’m sure could make it seem much worse.
It would be portrayed as a Left wing insurrection in the Government. And then the baying for the dissolution of parliament would start for Labour in a way that we were deprived of during Cameron, May, Johnson, Sunak (who?).
Just watch it happen.
Good insight as ever PSR.
Thing is, Starmer, Reeves & Streeting have all painted themselves into corners over expenditure to some degree leaving none of them with much wiggle-room as the collective penny drops at an agonisingly slow pace that there is widespread anger among the electorate with their demonstable lack of progress. The unforced errors, such as the pensioners winter fuel allowance and two child benefit cap have left them in the minds of many as both heartless and incompetent. Either they begin to throw one another under the bus and precipitate the scenario in your post or rip-up those few remaining election pledges (do any remain intact?) and begin funding public services in real earnest. I suppose they could always simply refuse to act, carry on as is and face an electoral wipeout of actually historic proportions be that in ’29 or earlier. Their continued insistence on failed dogma as they cling to describing economics in fantasy terms has left them on a very short self-imposed tether.
Certainly from those possibilities it seems that the Labour government is achieving little more than clearing the way for Farage or whichever of Musk’s favoured lickspittle he selects to plant into the leadership position via his money. When Darren Jones quipped that ‘the adults are back in the room’ he clearly was nowhere near any of his parliamentary colleagues.
I’d celebrate being wrong about this but I sincerely cannot see anyone among the PLP putting forth reasonable and workable plans to put the country back on its feet that any of the Labour top guns would accept.
http://m4.emails.telegraph.co.uk/nl/jsp/m.jsp?c=%40ZaO4iGRuSKgHziOVDUKHAIB0OtSYY8egS9kKTCY5ukNX9Xx4PZj2zMGvGWM598C0LLxcfc5MNTfMsaERRvPSlQ%3D%3D&WT.mc_id=e_DM490040&WT.tsrc=email&etype=Edi_Nhl_New&utmsource=email&utm_medium=Edi_Nhl_New20250109&utm_campaign=DM490040
This is the Telegraph Headlines email this morning. They are gunning for Labour. All anti-Labour stories – no surprise there, I suppose – and the obligatory kick-the-BBC one.
Do you expect anything intelligent or honest from the DT anymore Ralph?
Whatever we may feel about labour ourselves, the DT’s anti labour bias and descent into tinfoil hat lunacy means it is an utter joke of a newspaper now.
Today’s newsletter from that was quite absurd
@Richard
“The likelihood that Reeves will survive 2026 is, I think, low”
Did you mean 2025????
I think she might make it through this year. Getting rid of her too early would, in Starmer’s mind, feel like a sign of weakness.
You may be right that Reeves can’t survive 2026, but we can’t wait that long. Her chosen policies are damaging public services and people’s lives every day. Somehow we must get her out asap – by the end of this month if possible, or many more lives, businesses and possibly the government will be lost.
Recent conversations with SME business owners are pointing to significant cost increases from 1 April. Employers NI and minimum wage increases are known, as are energy costs etc. easily calculated and are going to be passed on as price increases. Further, businesses with minimum wage employers anticipating a chain reaction, reflecting in pay increases up the grades. Pressures which may quickly push the inflation rate beyond BoE forecast. Who could have seen this coming?
To my mind it seems obvious. Starmer’s task, given to him by his neoliberal masters, is simply to destroy the labour party.
He’ll stay leader for this term, or perhaps earlier if labour implode as suggested.
Either way, at the next election he’ll be standing for the tories and will up for their leadership in no time.
I think events are rapidly overcoming the limited ability to plan or even deal with what are actually very straightforward problems. The well-funded and obsessive drive to gut the Labour Party of ideas or democracy has succeeded; poised to run a centre-right drab managerialism Starmer et al are suddenly faced with multiple problems that require money to solve. The crux is either to slide further into authoritarian politics with hopeless financial nous, or to admit mistakes and go Keynesian. I don’t think they’ll do either, but flap their hands ineffectively. The chance to shut down the far right conduit of funding, the chance to go national with declarations of independence from foreign interference….well that would be a bit hypocritical for Starmer, OK….it is weakness to attack the weak, and fail to stand up to the bullies. To think we were once a savage, cut-throat nation!
“To think we were once a savage, cut-throat nation”!
Err, four to be precise, going back far enough. As always, management “by commitee” (Union/colonisation, call it what you will), shall inevitably reduce the strength of some, to the level of the weakest.
Some of us still possess that savage trait, should the situation require!
Indeed, even Starmer has shown his savagery, albeit personal, not political.
I expect there will be “events” which will show this, as all these proposed issues are realised; Trump/ climate/ barriers to trade/ Nationalism (the insular kind)/ Reform/ Musk etc.
Domestic politics will inevitally be a side-show for some time yet- the action will be International.
Sacking Reeves would be the easy bit. Replacing her with someone who has the guts to borrow and spend (and tax) to rescue the UK economy is much harder. I cannot think of any candidate prepared to work with Starmer and the likely consequence of a new Chancellor will be no improvement. It will be a lot harder to blame the individual in post at this point.
“. It’s either Rachel Reeves or him who will have to go” A win-win situation!