PATIENT care will not be sacrificed to appease the “ideological hobby horses” of left-wing purists, Wes Streeting vowed as he stared down a torrent of outrage.
The Shadow Health Secretary tonight doubled down on the urgent need for NHS reform despite critics crying “betrayal” at his plans to use the private sector.
He told The Sun’s Never Mind The Ballots show: “I think actually the betrayal is that the Labour Party hasn’t got its act together over the last four general elections.”
Mr Streeting has pledged sweeping changes to the health service – such as a massive equipment upgrade – rather than pouring endless taxpayer cash into the system.
Also on tonight’s episode of Never Mind the Ballots:
His promise to use private capacity to help wrestle down record-high waiting lists has infuriated diehard left-wingers.
But refusing to be cowed, the rising star and recent cancer patient said: “People know the Labour Party is committed to the NHS and its principles, beyond those middle class lefties railing online accusing me of wanting to privatise the NHS.
By JACK ELSOM, Chief Political Correspondent
WES Streeting is no doubt one of Labour’s best salesmen – and you can bet to see much more of him this election year.
The aspiring health secretary certainly talks a good game on NHS reform, and is not afraid to ruffle some feathers in the process.
His pledge to use private sector muscle demonstrates a resolve to put pragmatism over left-wing ideology.
But the real test will come if he gets into power, where he will find overhauling the NHS is like trying to turn round a giant tanker ship.
An army of vested interests demanding ever more money without a willingness to change will come into conflict with his best laid plans.
Mr Streeting claims Labour is in a better position to lance the boil of NHS reform than the Tories – time will tell.
“Over my dead body will I privatise the NHS. But it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t reform or shouldn’t change things.
“There’s this idea that it’s me versus the health staff, but loads of staff in the NHS and patients can see it’s not working, and chucking more money at the service is not going to solve anything.”
During his grilling, Mr Streeting brandished an emotional letter he received from a voter called David whose mum is waiting for a knee replacement.
He said: “I’m in it for people like Dave, and frankly making sure that Dave’s mum can get timely access to care is more important than people’s ideological hobby horses.
“And what I’d say to my critics online, including those people that regularly take to Twitter as keyboard warriors, is you have to look people like Dave’s mum in the eye and say that your left-wing principles are more important than her access to care.
By HARRY COLE, Political Editor
AS mea culpas go you do not get much more stark that Wes Streeting’s about turn on trans on this week’s edition of Never Mind the Ballots.
When I asked him whether “leading figures” like himself were part of the decades-long problem of silencing any critic of the sweeping transgender debate, he replied: “Absolutely”.
It’s not very often you get such an honest answer from a politician.
Streeting was one of the first Labour MPs to actually say what his boss Sir Keir Starmer could not – that “men have penises, women have vaginas.”
But he has a notable track record of being a hardliner on this issue – long insisting “transwomen are women, get over it!”
In 2017 he backed a parliamentary attempt to hand young gender-questioning people “bridging hormones” when stuck in the ever growing queue for now discredited NHS gender treatments.
As the Cass Report lays bare, the evidence of this sort of treatment was built on sand.
While his former employer Stonewall were not as hot on trans rights when Streeting worked there before becoming an MP, they have been at the forefront of illiberal attempts to shut down conversation.
His admission that the group “haven’t been open enough to the argument and to the debate” is something of an understatement”… but it’s a start.
However there will be some way to go to heal the wounds in the Labour Party – and wider society.
Take Labour MP Rosie Duffield for example, who was all but hounded out of Labour and branded a bigot for standing up for the rights of biological women.
As she said in response to the Cass Review: “As male leaders take applause, praise and credit for simply listening to an expert, and finally reading the room (the voters), where were the senior ‘sisters’?
“Perhaps less moral cowardice now? No apologies to those ‘investigated’, reprimanded, passed over, bullied, deselected.”
Streeting says he regrets his hardliner stance, but perhaps it is time for party chiefs and discredited campaigners to go one step further… and say sorry?
“My left-wing principles say that working class people should not be left behind while middle and upper class people get to jump the queue.”
Labour has pledged £1.1billion more for the NHS alongside a plan to strip out red tape and “box-ticking”.
Tory ministers have seized upon poor waiting times in Labour-run Wales as evidence the party should not be trusted in England.
Mr Streeting said last night: “The Welsh Labour government wouldn’t pretend that the NHS is working brilliantly in Wales at the moment.
“But right across the UK, the NHS is in crisis. I ask people to judge Labour on our record when we were last in government, which delivered the shortest waiting times and the highest patient satisfaction ever.”
NHS DOCTOR Bhasha Mukherjee grilled Wes Streeting during tonight's episode of Never Mind the Ballots. Read their exchange below.
Dr Bhasha: “We have just had the worst pandemic and so much has gone on. What would you have done differently? The Tories have been managing the country, but what would you have done differently?”
Wes: “I think on the pandemic we tried to work really constructively with the Government because it was a national crisis. I do think there are lessons to be learned but actually, that wouldn’t be where I’d focus my criticisms on the last 14 years and I would accept that if there had been a Labour Government things would have been difficult.
“Where I would lay my criticism was on that disastrous top-down reorganisation and actually when you compare the NHS to other health systems in other OECD countries, other advanced economies, we don’t do nearly enough in primary care, community services, social care, mental health and so part of Labour’s reform agenda is to shift the centre of gravity of the NHS out hospitals and into the community – making sure it’s a neighbourhood health service.
“Because people can’t get to see GPs, there are thousands fewer GPs, people are waiting far too long they end up in A&E. And that’s worse for them but also more expensive for the tax payer because seeing a GP would cost about £40 – ending up in A&E cost £400.
Dr Bhasha: “And despite that, GPs only get eight per cent of the budget. Will the Labour Government finally change that and put more money off the NHS pie, so to speak, into the GP?”
Wes: “As a percentage of the NHS’s budget, we’ve got to grow primary care and general practice. That will hopefully be good news and music to the ears of GPs.”
