Briefing: Labour pounce on ‘liar’ Johnson, party NHS tensions, green jobs pledge

Good morning. Wes Streeting has again stressed the need for “serious reform and modernisation” of the NHS and talked up the potential of technology to alleviate pressures within the health service. Addressing the NHS ConfedExpo on Wednesday, the Shadow Health Secretary argued that the health service is being “held back by creaking, outdated technology”, adding: “To make it fit for the future, the NHS will have to change. The change will have to be deep and fundamental.” The Labour frontbencher acknowledged some of the tensions that have emerged around his party’s plans for the health service (though critics may note he said next to nothing about funding), telling attendees: “When I talk about the need for reform, I can sometimes hear shivers running down a million spines in the NHS.” But he claimed that the “risk of failing to modernise is that the service will be left to wither on the vine” – becoming what he called the “poor man’s service”.

The speech took place on the latest day of strike action within the NHS, with junior doctors taking part in a further 72-hour walkout from Wednesday to Saturday. Streeting brought up the strikes in his speech, though largely in order to criticise the government’s handling of the dispute, urging Rishi Sunak to sit down with striking staff and negotiate. Labour continues to face criticism of its own over its stance towards strikes, with Socialist Health Association chair Mark Ladbrooke calling on the party to stand “shoulder to shoulder with those taking industrial action” in the NHS in a piece for LabourList this week. The party’s health affiliate has spoken out against Streeting’s vision for the NHS before, and Ladbrooke again emphasised the need for the health service to be better resourced, writing: “It is time to end the austerity myth and get to grips with the reality facing more than a million NHS workers, their families and ultimately their patients.” Matthew Taylor, CEO of the NHS Confederation and an ex-adviser to Tony Blair, also noted “more funding will be needed” to actually implement new technologies.

Today, it’s Ed Miliband’s turn on the podium, addressing industry leaders at the UK’s largest conference for the global offshore wind industry. Speaking ahead of the event, the Shadow Climate Change and Net Zero Secretary said Labour’s “whole energy policy is about clean, affordable power and good jobs for Britain” – again centring jobs in the party’s offer in an attempt to assuage the concerns raised by trade union leaders about Labour’s plans for the oil and gas industry. Miliband also made a point of stressing the geopolitical importance of increasing the UK’s energy security, declaring that Britain “can never again be at the mercy of fossil fuel dictators like Putin, as we have been under the Tories” – in what could become a regular counter-attack on claims by the Tories that “eco-zealots” from Just Stop Oil are “writing Keir Starmer’s energy policy”.

Elsewhere, Boris Johnson faces the music today, with the privileges committee publishing its report, which concludes that the former Prime Minister knowingly misled parliament multiple times about ‘partygate’. True to form, Johnson has denounced the report as a “charade”, but Labour’s shadow Commons leader Thangam Debbonaire called it “damning”, exposing Johnson as a “lawbreaker and a liar”. She also sought to tarnish Sunak, calling him “distracted by the Tory soap opera”, and “out of touch” for supporting taxpayer funding for Johnson’s “lies”.

We already know that Camden councillor Danny Beales will be contesting the seat vacated by Johnson – and expect to discover who will be Labour’s candidate in Nadine Dorries’ constituency by tomorrow. Candidates confirmed to be on the shortlist are Waltham Forest councillor Alistair Strathern and sexual harassment lawyer Deeba Syed. The former highlighted his “local roots and proven experience” to LabourList, while the latter called herself a “campaigner with a national track record” ahead of a hustings.

Meanwhile, members of ASLEF, the train drivers’ union, have voted overwhelmingly to continue strike action in their long-running dispute over pay. And Tony Blair praised Keir Starmer in an appearance on Times Radio this morning, telling listeners that the Labour leader has brought the party “to the position where you can actually put the question without laughing, is Labour a shoo-in at the next election?”, which the former Prime Minister argued was a “mark of [Starmer’s] leadership”.