Wes Streeting is the most interesting member of the Labour front bench. He is also a lucky man. Not only has he survived a brush with cancer: he had been condemned to death before he was born. Under pressure from her mother, his mother had decided to have an abortion. At the last moment, she changed her mind and had a full English breakfast, which prevented the procedure from going ahead. Her mother was furious.
It would be interesting to know what Streeting now thinks about the Lefties who insist that the right to kill foetuses is just about the most important human right of all.
Moreover, when he was in Opposition, Wes Streeting made the most important statement ever to emerge from that front bench (though there was little competition). He declared that the NHS was a service, not a shrine. At the time, I wondered whether any Tory health secretary would have dared to be so forthright. More recently, and absolutely correctly, Streeting has been castigating the BMA. British Medical Association: that sounds like a learned body, on a par with the Royal Colleges. But this is fraudulence by nomenclature. It is merely giving cover for a quasi-Scargillite trade union. For Hippocratic, read hypocritic.
Hypo leads on to hypochondria. Wes Streeting also also seems to understand that the spread of malingering and hypochondria is the greatest single threat to the British economy and to the hundreds of thousands of youngsters who are withdrawing from the labour market, and thus blighting their own life chances.
Streeting has now become one of the rising hopes of the sane tendency among the ever-larger despairing wing of the Labour Party. But he has a problem. He would undoubtedly be Tony Blair’s candidate. What: a realist and someone who wants to win elections? That would not appeal to Wes Streeting’s many colleagues who are still suffering from long Corbynism. But if there is to be a change, we can only hope that he defeats Angela Rayner. One is prepared to believe that if Wes Streeting were in charge of an economic portfolio, he would understand the importance of achieving growth rather than bleating about it like an exceptionally slow-witted sheep.
Keir Starmer has recently praised Angela Rayner as a shining example of social mobility. He would be correct, if he were referring to downward social mobility. Her current (un)employment bill will discourage employers from creating jobs, and the tax increases which she would like to see would add to our general downward spiral.
It could be argued that if Starmer and his Chancellor were domestic pets, their owners would be facing prosecution by the RSPCA, for failing to ensure that such hopelessly suffering creatures had been humanely put down. That said, there are Tories who hope that Starmer and Reeves survive, to go on bleeding in the water. Moreover, if the alternative were Angela Rayner, it would be foolish to assume that the current haplessness is the worst that could be inflicted on the country.
Such unseasonal gloom leads on to Kemi Badenoch. It is to be hoped that she will enjoy a merry Christmas and certainly a merrier one than last year. She has earned it. In difficult months, she has displayed strength of character and steadiness under fire. It would almost be straining credulity to believe that there have not been dark nights of the political soul, during which she must have wondered whether by going for the leadership so early, she had condemned herself to becoming William Hague 2.0 – or even Iain Duncan Smith 2.0. But if such doubts assailed her, she kept them to herself. This warrior girl is now entitled to sing King Alfred’s battle-song. ‘If you have a trouble/tell it not to the weakling./Tell it to your saddle-bow/and ride forth singing’.
That also defines one of her tasks. Even among unbelievers, Advent should lighten the spirits. Glad tidings of great joy: we could all do with some of those. Yet the British people have rarely seemed gloomier. There is no need to turn Panglossian. In many respects, the world is indeed in a terrible state of chaos – and I am not only referring to the Ashes. But this is still a great country and a mighty people. A nation with such a glorious past has no right to despair about its future.
I think that Nigel Farage understands this, which is to his credit. Even so, he is not an homme serieux: just a cheeky chappie with a saloon-bar take on the important questions of the day. But Badenoch is serious. She could sweep up any of the serious aspects of the Reform agenda (there are some). But above all, she could offer toughness, realism and a positive vision for Britain. In looking to government, she could also commit herself to that uncommon quality – common sense.
Millions of decent people have come to believe that in this country today, nothing works. Correcting this is Badenoch’s task. She must promise to mobilise the talent and energy of our people in the task of national recovery. To promise to bring back common sense and to pledge that things are going to work. Above all, to offer the British people the best of all Christmas presents: hope.
For many people, there is a brilliant piece of music or an inspiring novel that changes their life. For a freak like me, it was obviously a documentary. And of course it was a documentary about Margaret Thatcher. Released just after she died, ‘Margaret, Death of A Revolutionary’ set me on the path of believing […]
This week, Nimby Watch is in for a reckoning… Hey, you. Excuse me? Are you talking to me? Yes, you. I’ve got something you should read. Hang on a minute, shouldn’t you be asking me questions? Are you breaking the format? Damn right I am. Every fortnight, you take me somewhere in the UK, show […]
You don’t expect to hear national policy being made on Reddit, and yet last week Andy Burnham did just that in an Ask Me Anything. When asked what he will do to fix the housing crisis, he pledged to ‘launch the biggest council house building programme since the post-war period’ and that ‘nothing else will […]
