Although the general election concluded almost a month ago, the politicking isn’t quite over. A week into the job as secretary of state for health and social care, Wes Streeting ordered a “raw and honest” investigation into the state of the National Health Service. Since then, he has pledged to “tell the truth to our country”, teasing “more to come” on as-yet hidden scandals that, once public, will “spell out really clearly really transparently the scale of the failure in the NHS”.
Although transparency is welcome, this is also politics. Streeting doesn’t want to be associated with the Tory-initiated glide toward earth, or for the electoral cycle to determine the reset point. Instead, only when the nadir has been loudly identified does Labour want the clock to start on its decade-long promised turnaround. To adopt a highly imprecise investing analogy, the health secretary wants us all to buy in at the absolute bottom.
Still, political time moves fast. The new government knows it must soon shift from headshaking to a focus on the “deliverables” and “KPIs” that speakers of NHS bureaucratese will instantly recognise.