Keir Starmer is right about the NHS

Keir Starmer’s diagnosis of the NHS is correct. ‘If we don’t get real about reform, the NHS will die,’ he says. The Labour leader, and odds-on favourite to be next PM, has called for an ‘unsentimental’ shake-up of a service that is undeniably failing. Millions are waiting for treatment, ambulance waits are so long they are stretching the axis on graphs and good luck even getting your GP to answer the phone. ‘The idea that the service is still “the envy of the world” is plainly wrong,’ he wrote in the Daily Telegraph.

So why have we not seen meaningful reform yet? Starmer points to the esteem in which the health service is held. Reform is challenging when almost any suggestion for change – other than pouring cash into the bottomless pit – is seen as an attack on our doctors and nurses or a backdoor attempt to sell it off.