House of Commons is NHS waiting room from hell for Labour rivals
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Version 0 of 1. It’s not just the waiting times in A&E that are getting longer. The waiting times to debate the NHS are also getting far too long for Andy Burnham, the shadow health secretary, and Liz Kendall, the shadow minister for care and older people. With an hour of health questions followed by a six-hour debate on the health and social care proposals in the Queen’s speech, two of the leading contenders for the Labour leadership were forced to sit side by side for much of the day. Related: No more £3,500-a-shift doctors, Jeremy Hunt tells NHS As in many hospital waiting rooms, it was those who were most in pain who suffered in silence. While the rest of the house went about its business as usual, Burnham and Kendall drew on all their reserves to avoid accidentally acknowledging the other’s existence. The concentration involved was immense: from time to time they would brush shoulders but both refused to make eye contact. Instead, they spent all their time either looking straight ahead or staring down at their prepared speeches. Both scribbled furiously, crossing out an important “and”, replacing it with a “but” only to reinstate the original “and”. Few speeches have ever been subject to such close scrutiny. Having rewritten every paragraph at least three times, Burnham and Kendall had to resort to doodling. “I H8 Liz”, Andy scribbled in the margin of his speech, underlining the word H8 three times. Liz retaliated by scrawling, “Andy is a loser” on her order paper. All of which made life rather easier for Jeremy Hunt than he might have expected. The health secretary finds himself obliged to follow through a manifesto he had never properly read with money he doesn’t know he hasn’t got. Wisely, he kept things as vague as possible, especially in regard to funding, which he avoided completely. Hunt was joined at the dispatch box by Ben Gummer, making his frontbench debut as a junior minister. David Cameron must have a sense of humour in his appointments. It was Gummer’s father, John, who force-fed his daughter – Ben’s sister, Cordelia – a burger in a disastrous PR stunt during the BSE crisis: Ben’s main brief at the Department of Health is to make sure that kind of parental abuse is never repeated. Eventually, Burnham got his chance. Often he is prone to being shouty and ranty, but now he was quite the statesman. Measured and forensic. Poor Liz. One couldn’t help but feel for her. There was her main adversary dismantling the health secretary’s speech – not hard, but it needed to be done – point by point and she was caught in the headlights. Do nothing and she would appear to be churlish; cheer too vigorously and she would be giving Burnham too much credit. She settled for a few desultory nods, but looked miserable. Kendall did get some respite when Burnham left the chamber for a few hours, but when he returned the mind games resumed. He made sure there was enough space between them to avoid any possibility of bodily contact; he also made a point of chatting to anyone but her. Liz kept her head down, continuing to write and rewrite her speech that was, in its way, passionate and well-argued. But summing up is a thankless task as the chamber is nearly always empty and everything that needs to be said already has been. Nor did it help that Burnham had moved closer to her and was nodding vigorously and saying “hear, hear” loudly at key points. Just in case she was in a any doubt about who bossed the day, he gave her a gentle slap of encouragement on the back when she sat down. Putting the pat into patronising. |