Coffee House Shots
Can Wes Streeting end the NHS strikes?
Get three months of the spectator for just three pounds. Go to spectator.co.uk/trial. Hello and welcome to Coffee House Shots, the spectator's Daily Politics Podcast. I'm Cindy Yu and I'm joined by Iswell Hardman and James Yu. So today, West treating is about to meet the BMA, the union of junior doctors to liaise about the strikes that have been going on for a long time. Iswell, he said some stuff about what he wants to do and what he doesn't want to do with these junior doctor strikes. Tell us about that. Yeah, so surprisingly enough, he wasn't pretending during the election campaign that he wasn't going to give him a 35% pay rise. Still not going to give them a 35% pay rise now labors in office. And when he was speaking at the future of Britain, conference, the Tony Blair Fest this morning, he said that the reason we were so blunt was that we wanted to be kind of honest dealers with the junior doctors rather than stringing them along. Now, there are other things that he can do on pay as well as on conditions, which I'll get onto in a minute, but what he could do and one of the things that I think the BMA junior doctor's committee could accept because they don't want to lose face, but also at some point they're going to have to accept that they're not going to get 35% is a promise of staggered pay restoration when circumstances allow. So this whole dispute is over giving a 35% pay rise to take account of the fact that doctors have seen their pay eroded since 2008. And so what you would do is see a pay restoration that would mean you'd return to 2008 levels in real terms today when circumstances allow. So that's the phrase we hear a lot from Labour anyway when circumstances allow whether it's on defence spending or whatever. And for defence spending it's something that is causing Labour quite a bit of grief because there's a reasonably good argument that actually it shouldn't be when circumstances allow, but when circumstances demand and the circumstances at the moment are pretty demanding in a defence context. However, it may well be an acceptable phrase to the junior doctor's committee because as I say they don't want to lose face and they have in previous disputes, most notably the one with Jeremy Hunt over junior doctors contracts back in 2015, 2016 that the BMA really lost face because they're WhatsApp messages about what this dispute was was about believed and they've been telling their members that it was about safety and they were talking about how it was actually about pay and that they wanted to humiliate the current government and they lost the faith of a lot of their members but they obviously got a different committee these days but they'll be very aware of what happens when you push too hard for something that's impossible and when you don't play your hand properly. So that's the first thing. The second thing is really answering what the driver of these strikes, not just from junior doctors, but from consultants and nurses, other healthcare workers has been which is conditions in the NHS. It's quite common for NHS workers to either use the phrase or describe a relationship with the NHS that they say it's like being an abusive relationship and that they love the NHS, they want to give everything and they want to make it work but the NHS treats them appallingly and now Streeting was talking about that very clearly today when he cited the case and this is not a particularly unusual case I think or at least not an unusual situation for a junior doctor not to have any flexibility in where they are placed. Now this particular junior doctor, his wife had cancer and they had two children, they still didn't get any flexibility in their placement and that was reversed after an outcry but junior doctors will all recognise that, they'll recognise not being able to get time off to study for their major professional exams which they have to take, time off to actually get married because their rotors are often issued only sort of two or three months in advance. All of these things that you know most people would expect a decent employer to have some humanity over, NHS staff don't and I think after COVID in particular after they really went above and beyond their you know their normal levels of physical exhaustion and moral injury they felt as though there was the opposite of being thanked for that and so that's why we've ended up with so much industrial action across the health service and so that's one of the things that Streeting also needs to resolve you know you might have an acceptable pay offer but you're going to have doctors, nurses, healthcare workers still feeling really let down by their employer and by the government and given he has you know a lot of really ambitious reforms coming up over the next few years he needs their buy-in to be able to deliver that. Fascinating James you watched a bit of that Tony Blair Institute conference today tell us about what you saw and it's interesting timing this former Labour Prime Minister having a bit of a you know policy-led cocktail day conference with high profile guests as well as Tony Blair kind of just generally giving his thoughts on how his summer shows govern. Yeah so it's interesting as you say it reminded me of sort of the famous line by Hartley Shawcross we are the masters now after 1945 look the Blairites obviously are very happy with the result last week and just to say first of all on Westreeting speech I thought was interesting the most interesting line from that talk he gave at the DBI Institute was talking about his apartment DHSC being a growth department a generation of economic growth and I think that shows your festival you know an originality of thought which I hope we'll keep on getting doing but second of all you know the kind of alignment with the overall missions and how important growth is to this government and how economic growth is the benchmark it set itself to do to stand or fall by that so that's showing a kind of lined up thinking with Rachel Reeves and the Treasury said he didn't want to depart the health to be a begging bowl now we awake to see when it comes to spending decisions about whether that actually will hold or not but I thought that was an interesting speech and it was a kind of it was a kind of thing that's obviously stood we're streaming out when he kind of goes into his department so I think that was a kind of supply side social democracy we've discussed about this podcast before look overall in terms of the TBI obviously I think they've clearly identified AI and tech as being something that's going to be the big thing for them I think it's interesting obviously coming a few days after Tony Blair's comments in the Sunday Times talking about the need to tackle migration I think that's going to be a key divide I think both obviously Blair and Starmer are figures of different slightly differing sense left traditions but it's going to be a key relationship to watch and perhaps you wonder obviously wouldn't get as personal as this but perhaps there's a sense among some of Starmer's team a slight sense of backseat driver that John Major had with Margaret Thatcher after she resigned to leave there'll be an interesting kind of divide to watch and then really I think overall the kind of sense perhaps of the TBI drana markets as health as being the kind of in-group really I think it's a lot of jockey jockeying for influence going on in labour right now and obviously as we've said before in this podcast the factory violence was the first of the TBI hires for the government but won't be the last and as well we've heard a little bit about this mission led government that the Labour Party wants to bring it in but it is now in government would tell us about what that means and how does that mean that a department like Department of Health can be a growth department yeah so the main thing that we've heard so far at least in structural terms is Kia Storm's announcement of mission delivery board which sounds very starmarish and he's going to be chairing all of them and you do get prime ministers announcing these different structures whether they're you know sub committees cabinet subcommittees and and so on to show that something is a priority by their attendance rather than allowing another minister to to get on with the job and on their behalf and those mission delivery boards as I understand it will be ensuring that the departments are delivering on the key missions of labour and really looking at the nitty gritty of what's getting in the way of these missions and you know that I think Labour was criticised for having an unambitious manifesto but in fairness the scale of the things that it was still promising were quite ambitious so you know if we're looking in a department of health context how are you going to drive down waiting lists how are you going to drive down waiting times how are you going to do this if you are still in dispute with the junior doctors well you're not frankly how are you going to do this if even after a pay deal you still have staff retention problems to put it mildly where doctors just think you know what I'm putting myself through something that is not found me on my family either I'm moving to Australia I'm going to give up and go and do something completely different so all of these things that you know haven't actually been dealt with over the past 14 years these mission delivery boards are supposed to hold the department of health or any other department that's got a reform agenda to account on and we're seeing more appointments and more experts coming in on that I think it's really interesting that and this has been an accusation that the starmer is governing from the lords which I don't think is is fully true but I think it's really interesting that he is making sure that particularly in the departments where the secretary of state has a very ambitious reform agenda but has only known life in opposition there is someone very experienced alongside them so we're streeting you know huge reform agenda huge vision actually driven by we're streeting rather than here starmer he's never known life in a Labour government he's got Alan Milburn advising him Bridget Phillipsen again huge reform agenda in education he's got Jackie Smith in the department now Jackie Smith as I understand it will be doing skills and universities so that's you know massive briefing and of itself and sort of slightly frees up Bridget Phillipsen to focus on the earlier end of the education journey with schools and early years but it also means you've got someone in the department who's been in a department before and who just knows what the blockages are that you can end up coming up against without even realizing you're there and you're actually in a sort of civil service holding pattern as opposed to cracking on with what you want to do so I think that's really really significant that he's getting these these old experienced hands-in and finally James across Westminster in a hall that was slightly less busy than the TBI conference hall was the popular conservatives having a conference well what were they talking about what was it like it was a therapy session really from what I could tell look I mean the danger is of course the popcorn movement is that now unfortunately there were no actual MPs there which is the interesting thing is you know it's part of the right over the next few years they're gonna have to work out where it goes as I think certain groups are going to be perhaps less central to the conversation shall we say on the national conversation than previously thought you know the fact that of that popcorn looked which was only I think five months ago you know Liz Trus lost her seat when I jumped I wasn't lost her seat Mario Fraser didn't win her seat Jack Rankin who was a candidate was meant to be there did win his seat but wasn't actually in the room Leonson's now defected so there are actually very few conservative representatives left in the popcorn I mean Lord Frost did speak and Sweller Bradman was down the line but I think it just shows I mean as much as this contest it was going to unfold and Richtenet goes and it's going to be about the who I think also the interesting question about the Tories is what what does it mean to be a conservative how does that relate to reform all these big questions are going to have to work it out and I think that's the kind of interesting takeaway from today and we of course are recording this at three o'clock on Tuesday a few hours before the 9/22 who immediately are going to meet have a hustling to act the new chairman I think it was a bit of a massacre of the many grey suits on Thursday that was like reservoir dogs they all got wiped out apart from three of them the 9/22 committee exactly 18 they were Jeffrey Clifton Brown Bob Blackman and Martin Vickers and so Clifton Brown and Blackman are the two candidates and they'll be meeting today and I think the first thing in front of them will be then once you've agreed the umpires then you can dictate the rules and the rules for this great game of the Tory leadership race going to shortly begin and the key question I think right now is when will it be wrapped up by and do you go long or not and the current mood from what I can tell seems to be around no rush fairly long so involving confidence in some capacity you announce that they're really kind of staggering over there as a beauty pageant but I do think that's where Bradman's comments in the last 24 hours first of all with that speech she made at NatCon hitting out the progress flag and then criticizing Robert generate subsequently to her speech today have have slightly damaged her limited support as it were so we interesting to kind of see in the coming days when there's no rush I think colleagues are still bruised and hurt coming to terms with the defeat how people choose to develop and it's no surprise thing everyone's kind of integral on at the same pace so on Sunday Victoria Atkins Robert generate sort of round and all doing media rounds but all of them assisting they would talk about what are done wrong rather than the future so I think we'll see more of that in the come ways are we interesting to see at what point someone does choose to announce James and as well thanks very much and if you enjoy coffee house shots remember we have a live recording of coffee house shots this Thursday 11th of July to get tickets you can go to spectator.co.uk/live [Music] [BLANK_AUDIO]