• frankPodmore@slrpnk.netOP
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    4
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    5 months ago

    If you select only the messages designed to appeal to the right (to whom they have to appeal if they want to win!), sure. But they’ve also had plenty of leftwing messaging, comparing their plans to Attlee, most obviously. As to Streeting’s comments in particular, it’s the ‘middle class’ bit that’s important: he’s criticising privileged people prioritising grandstanding over getting things done.

    More to the point, the policies are much more important than the odd bit of rhetoric.

    • cook_pass_babtridge
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      edit-2
      5 months ago

      Wanting the NHS to remain in public hands isn’t a middle-class opinion, it’s a left-wing one. The reason he uses the word “middle-class” is to characterise that argument as one that can only be made by someone in an ivory tower, insulated from the real problems of the world where we have to use private providers. And I disagree with that characterisation: I think that our use of private providers to fill gaps in the NHS has massively increased the cost and only served to enrich the private medical industry. But making that point makes me a middle-class luvvy who doesn’t know the real world, unlike Wes Streeting who has worked in student politics, think tanks and political parties his entire life (apart from that time he was at PwC as a public sector consultant, helping these companies get more of those lucrative contracts).

      • frankPodmore@slrpnk.netOP
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        5 months ago

        Wanting the NHS to refuse to use private companies, even if that might mean better outcomes, which is the actual policy and the goal, is a privileged position.

        Streeting is not proposing the NHS ‘no longer be in public hands’, so whether views on that are middle class, leftwing or whatever, are not relevant.

        • cook_pass_babtridge
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          5 months ago

          Nobody’s asking for worse outcomes - it’s a difference of opinion of what will actually work. Saying people want everyone to suffer so they can have their way is just being disingenuous.

          • frankPodmore@slrpnk.netOP
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            5 months ago

            That’s also not a fair characterisation of Streeting’s argument. It’s not that they want people to suffer, just that they’re not exposed to the consequences of the policies they’re advocating.

            • cook_pass_babtridge
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              5 months ago

              My point is that it’s not only middle-class people using private healthcare who think this. And Wes Streeting knows that. He just doesn’t want to argue for his market-based approach (because it’s really unpopular) so he just mischaracterises the opposition to it.

              • frankPodmore@slrpnk.netOP
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                5 months ago

                Private healthcare doesn’t come into it. It’s about people who don’t regularly interact with the health service, which is most of us, having stronger opinions about how healthcare is delivered than whether it is.

                • cook_pass_babtridge
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  ·
                  5 months ago

                  Again, it’s a difference of opinion about how it’s delivered, not whether it’s delivered. Can you find me a single example of someone saying they don’t want the NHS at all unless it’s 100% publicly delivered? Because that’s the imaginary person you and Wes Streeting are arguing against.

                  • frankPodmore@slrpnk.netOP
                    link
                    fedilink
                    English
                    arrow-up
                    1
                    ·
                    edit-2
                    5 months ago

                    People (in this very thread, so not strawmen!) mischaracterising using any private companies in delivery as taking the NHS out of public hands was exactly the argument that he was responding to.