NHS bloodbath
KEIR Starmer is living the Tories’ dream.
His left-wing Labour backbenchers may loathe him scrapping NHS England and slashing up to 10,000 penpushers.
Sir Keir Starmer must now take his chainsaw to hundreds more quangos[/caption]
We couldn’t be happier.
For years we have demanded a bonfire of the quangos — largely useless bloodsucking state-funded bureaucracies, blocking progress and stopping Governments doing what voters want.
Here is the biggest being hurled on the pyre.
More money for frontline services is of course welcome.
But even savings of hundreds of millions are tiny within the colossal NHS budget.
The main benefit should be greater efficiency, with speedier decisions taken directly by Wes Streeting’s Health Department.
Taxpayers detest public sector waste.
But their biggest concern by far is not how the NHS is run but how well it runs.
The Health Secretary must set out exactly how this streamlining will translate into drastically shorter wait times and better patient outcomes.
The fact this vital surgery fell to Labour vividly exposes the Tories’ failure.
It is true they spent years engulfed by Brexit, Covid and war.
But they also simply lacked the stomach to reform the NHS and endure the rage of Labour, the unions and even the mob on Twitter.
Labour has done what the Tories should have sorted long ago.
And the PM must now take his chainsaw to hundreds more quangos.
Death sentence
FIRST for the chop should be the Sentencing Council, before it makes two-tier justice official.
On April 1 courts will be expected to give criminals from ethnic, religious and gender minorities greater leniency.
Some judges warned the Council it would be monstrously unfair. It issued its woke edict anyway.
And while Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood knows how dangerously divisive this is, she refuses to back a Tory Bill to override it.
Why? Her ticking-off for the quango’s boss has fallen on deaf ears. She should now axe it entirely — or at least pass her own urgent Bill to assert HER authority.
How else will she stop this abomination being imposed in 18 days?
Proper Villan
CYNICS might have wondered whether Prince William’s Aston Villa fandom was as phony as David Cameron’s.
The ex-PM managed to confuse his club with West Ham.
But our fascinating sit-down with the future King boots any such talk into touch. His Villa worship is genuine, informed and every bit as obsessive as the rest of us are about our teams.
The admirably down-to-Earth Royal even chats on the fan forums online under an assumed name.
We haven’t a clue what it is.
Though if you spot, say, HeirWeGo1982, it’s a reasonable bet.
