Health pledge warning to Labour left
LABOUR’S shadow health secretary, Wes Streeting, has made something of a career of saying what would once have been unthinkable for a senior socialist politician. So his pledge on Monday, via an article in The Sun, to utilise spare capacity in the private medical sector to tackle backlogs for NHS patients, runs true to form. And his jibe that he won’t be listening to what he called “middle class lefties who cry ‘betrayal’” underlines his worthy commitment not to be tied to political dogma when it comes to tackling Britain’s health care crisis.
Of course going private on the NHS is nothing new. Patients have long been treated in private hospitals or clinics to avoid an unbearably long wait for an NHS bed, and many surgeons and consultants with their own private practices also work in the NHS. The lines are already blurred.
If Mr Streeting is promising to use taxpayers’ money to invest in the private healthcare sector for the good of patients, then he will earn plaudits from patients – and Labour will win votes at the next election. While there are some lefties, as Mr Streeting calls them, who will argue that shoring up the private care system with public money ultimately weakens the NHS, individuals with medical needs just want the treatment. If the infrastructure already exists, let’s use it to bring down waiting lists and worry about the principles that might be at stake later.
Mr Streeting, above, might need to brace himself for a battle with those ‘middle-class lefties,” however. Because, if the polls are to be believed, the scale of Labour’s election victory, when it eventually comes later this year, could put a good number of them into the House of Commons. Pollsters Survation put Sir Keir Starmer on course for a 286 majority with around 450 MPs. And while some will be straight out of the Keir Starmer, steady-as-she-goes and keep-it-moderate stable, many – it is a fair bet – will not. Already, speculation is mounting about how much those on the left, who would once have been loyal supporters of former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, might want by way of influence in a Keir Starmer government.
Mr Streeting is laying down a marker with an attack on the middleclass lefties, suggesting he – and presumably his boss, Sir Keir – can already foresee problems ahead with MPs who might be happy to toe the moderate Labour line at the moment, but will feel emboldened when they are in the House of Commons.
All political parties are made up of factions – just look at the Conservatives now, who are fighting like rats in a sack for the heart of the movement as they face huge challenges in the years ahead.
Labour – with a potential majority even bigger than Margaret Thatcher’s or Tony Blair’s – would be likely made up of MPs with a wide range of views, from the ultra cautious centrists to the out-and-out ex-Momentum members who were such a force under Jeremy Corbyn. What might they do when they find their party in Government, under a leader they believe is failing to go far enough, fast enough to achieve their aims, from greater public ownership of essential services to access in the countryside and a crackdown on country sports?
We have Boris Johnson to thank for stifling the unelectable elements of the Labour Party with his leadership at the General Election in 2019 that led to the downfall of Corbyn and the rise of the moderate Sir Keir.
But if, as some polls now predict, the election of 2024 creates an allpowerful Labour Party, it is hard to imagine that substantial elements of that more radical wing of the party won’t want to make their presence felt, especially if – restricted by the economic reality – Sir Keir cannot bring about swift and positive changes.
As one commentator wrote last week, no matter how loyal a candidate is to the party that helps them win their seat, once they’re in Westminster they start to believe the voters put them there because of their unique qualities and vision. They will want to put that vision into practice – and bring pressure to bear on the leadership.
Most prime ministers start the job looking across the chamber at the Opposition and seeing them as the enemy. It doesn’t take long – as many PMs have found in the past – to realise there are just as many honourable members behind you who are ready to stab you in the back.
Sir Keir Starmer may be able to see off those threats. Or he may bend to them. For many voters, that might not be a bad thing. Labour’s oh-socareful approach for fear of frightening off the voters is not playing well with everyone.
But if Wes Streeting’s warning on health is anything to go by, along with the careful financial pledges from shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves and Sir Keir’s own moderate policy pronouncements, this is going to be a very centrist Labour government, when it comes.
If that’s the case – and the majority is as big as is now being predicted – buckle up for a battle as we head through Labour’s first term, with plenty of in-fighting on the Government benches, red on red.