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Rhys Jaggar's avatar

' In national elections, it’s the managerial experience of the candidates that counts, and so-called populists usually don’t have these skills'

This may be how the media like to spin things, but do any even cursory due diligence and you'll find that, in the era of 'professional politicians' that this is absolute bunkum and balderdash (to quote the late Bernard Ingham, one of Margaret Thatchers more vociferous and combative media lieutenants).

I did a check on 41 year old Wes Streeting, purportedly going to the Secretary of State for Health if Keir Starmer wins a majority on July 4th. He has never had a proper job in his life: he was a Student Union President, then a Labour activist for 5 years, then he has been an Opposition MP for a decade. He has never worked in a lab, in a hospital, he has never been in management of a healthcare institution, he has never worked in the young company/intellectual property development space, he has never worked in big pharma, medical devices, nor in the bioinformation sphere. So how he has the first capability to understand anything about the health service, which employs north of 1 million people, is beyond me.

My guess is that companies like McKinsey and Co, skilled lobbyists for private sector clients, will have been writing position papers for Labour, most of which will go straight over their heads. Back room deals will have been done contingent on a Labour win and absolutely no details of any of it will have been in the Labour Party Manifesto, 127 pages or so of 'Keir Starmer for President' propaganda.

For Streeting to be saying that Farage, leader of Reform UK (and now second in the polls three weeks after starting from scratch) has no operational experience (at least the man worked in the City of London for several years before becoming an MEP) is the most scandalous hypocrisy of the most pathetic kind.

Streeting is just a skilled media operator who won't be able to get down to the nitty gritty because all he's ever done is climb the political greasy pole.

This isn't to say that Reform UK, the Workers' Party (two new radical insurgents from the right and left respectively) will be brilliant adminstrative managers, it's just saying that assuming that Labour and Conservative have any competence whatsoever is a form of delusional optimism more likely to be found in 11 year olds than those aged over 35......

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Tessa Lena's avatar

The kid!!!!!

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