Labour Obfuscate on NHS Waiting List Pledge
One of Labour’s six “first steps” pledges is defined on their website as: “Cut NHS waiting times with 40,000 more evening and weekend appointments each week, paid for by cracking down on tax avoidance and non-doms.” A pledge for a defined number of more appointments seems simple enough. The only problem? The Shadow Cabinet seem to have no idea what their pledge actually means…
In Starmer’s speech yesterday he actually said that there would be “40,000 operations and appointments, every single week…“. To add operations is a significant change – Starmer reiterated it to BBC News afterwards. Wes Streeting, at the same event, said that there would be 40,000 extra appointments only. Steve Reed later that day on GB News said the same thing: that the pledge related to extra appointments (though he is prone to misspeaking). Pat McFadden has today said that there will be “40,000 new appointments and treatments every week“. From these interviews voters have no idea if operations count as a “treatment”, or if operations will even rise as part of this pledge, which Starmer says they will, and Streeting (along with Labour’s own website) says they won’t. Guido has asked Labour to clarify their own pledge. Vagueness is an inflationary tool for political promises…
