[Crabcakes]

I haven’t seen this much bottle since united dairies still did morning milk rounds.

[Bones McCoy]

You know I'm not convinced this woman was a great loss as an MP. Streeting did grow up in a single parent family in Stepney.

She knows full well that Redbridge Council had big cuts from central government and couldn't raise rates.

As a son of Redbridge, there are working class bits, and plenty of extremely gentrified bits.
You wouldn't expect an outer London borough with 320,000 people to be any different.
Fucks-sake Ian Duncan Smith is one of the MPs in Winston Churchill's old Constituency.

I find Wikipedia's "Famous people from ..." an interesting insight into an area's social mix.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_p ... _Redbridge

Warning: list includes "Friend of the forum" Richard Littlejohn.

[Bones McCoy]

Wes has now resigned. Didn't mention a leadership challenge apparently, but that's what's next.

Oh shit: #1 son is/was chief economist on one of his pet health initiatives.

I wonder what that means for that job.

[Tubby Isaacs]

I can't get over that Faiza Shaheen tweet. What's a "caricature" about growing up in a single parent family in Stepney, in the 80s-90s. Having spent some time in the area from 2001 onwards, it looked like a pretty working class area to me. By all means say that you don't like his politics, but that's not a caricature.

[Oboogie]

I have in the past defended Wes Streeting and, on balance, I think he's done a good job at Health, but he's lost me now. I think his behaviour this week is both despicable and inept.
Moreover, I've been forced, for the first time, to imagine Streeting in the situations Starmer has recently been in - Oval Office pressers, EU/NATO summits and negotiations and he's not a comfortable fit. Ukraine, Iran, Greenland, Russian ships sniffing around cables in UK waters - I'm far happier with those issues on Starmer's desk than I would be if they were on Streetings.
Finally his 500 seat majority indicates his constituents aren't exactly brimming with enthusiasm for him.

[Oboogie]

I can't get over that Faiza Shaheen tweet. What's a "caricature" about growing up in a single parent family in Stepney, in the 80s-90s. Having spent some time in the area from 2001 onwards, it looked like a pretty working class area to me. By all means say that you don't like his politics, but that's not a caricature.

I think there's a touch of The Four Yorkshiremen about Faiza Shaheen, HER tough backstory is the only one that counts.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Her back story is having two parents with reasonable jobs in Chingford, doubtless in private housing.

For some reason people who from poorer backgrounds who aren't left wing really set some of them off.

[Tubby Isaacs]

This sounds a bit grudging by the Guardian.

In his statement accompanying the release of NHS England waiting times figures this morning (see 10.42am), Wes Streeting said the NHS had delivered “the biggest cut in waiting lists in a single month in 17 years”. In his resignation letter, Streeting qualified this, saying today’s figure was “the biggest monthly drop outside of Covid since 2008”. (See 1.26pm.)

The Press Association has done a fact check on this claim. It says the qualified version is correct. It explains:

The most recent NHS England data show the waiting list stood at 7.11 million treatments in March, a fall of 110,073 treatments from February when it was 7.22 million.
Analysis of historical data shows this was the largest month-on-month decline since April 2020 when the waiting list fell by 335,009 treatments, and is also lower than March 2020 when it fell by 187,378 treatments. Both of these instances were during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Outside of the pandemic, March 2026 recorded the largest fall since the waiting list shrunk from 2.63 million in September 2008 to 2.47 million in October 2008, which was a decrease of 158,745 treatments.

That's not really a "qualified version" being true. That's being true, if you leave out two months when there was an actual pandemic. (I'd guess the NHS had a bit of capacity to check up on patients and lots helpfully said they were OK now, you guys get on with the pandemic).

Shame he didn't say in post to advertise how well he was doing, really.