Can Labour hit home with childcare reform – or tap the NHS birthday love-in?

Good morning. Expect the NHS to dominate the headlines this week, as if you haven’t heard already, Wednesday marks its 75th birthday. A new poll today shows 71% of voters think charges could be introduced for NHS care within a decade. It’s a depressing finding, but it does suggest Labour might find a more willing audience at this election than recent ones if it trots out its favoured NHS SOS tunes.

Shadow health secretary Wes Streeting fleshed out more on Labour’s ideas in The Sunday Times over the weekend, from more health visitors and district nurses to AI cancer diagnosis and healthy breakfast clubs in every school. Streeting also ran through some of his own favoured numbers, from how we “musn’t take for granted” a universal, free service, to less Bevanite ditties in defence of using the private sector and reforming an NHS that is “a service, not a shrine”.

EveryDoctor founder Dr Julia Patterson used a LabourList article over the weekend to acknowledge a “pragmatic” case for private sector involvement, but said the public “deserves to know” the detail and restrictions envisaged by Labour.

Education, education, childcare

The other big theme of the week for Labour at least is education and childcare, with leader Keir Starmer’s fifth and final speech on Labour’s “missions” expected this week. Education secretary Bridget Phillipson promised what the Mirror dubbed “super-teacher hit squads to rescue failing schools” this morning, with regional teams providing advice on areas like behaviour or curriculum failings. It comes on top of a £2,400 retention payment for new teachers promised yesterday.

Both plans obviously go beyond government policies, but notably not that far beyond them – much as with Labour’s proposals last week supporting mortgageholders. It’s a useful strategy in cutting the risk Labour ideas are attacked as absurdly radical or profligate, but less useful at getting cut-through with voters and rallying the Labour troops or striking teachers. Social affairs journalist Hannah Fearn noted even she had “barely heard” about Labour’s education plans in an i column yesterday.

Childcare reform has been consistently egged up as Labour’s flagship policy for young people, but detail remains scant and so far it risks being overshadowed by the Tories’ own plans and last month’s ruling out of free universal provision from nine months old. Yesterday Phillipson denied any watering-down so far, and said reforms would still represent change on the scale of creating the NHS.

The key question of the week for me is what signs Starmer and Phillipson give that the latter’s won the argument with Labour’s shadow treasury team for a big-spending, agenda-setting childcare reform, whether it’s fully unveiled now or, arguably more wisely, during an election campaign.

Refusing to Neal down

Another big question this week is how far the fallout continues from Labour’s momentous decision to investigate Neal Lawson, founder of soft-left think tank Compass, over a pro-electoral pact tweet from two years ago. The i reports some fearful MPs are now deleting past tweets to avoid being disciplined next.

Labour MP Jon Cruddas, notably once an early backer of the Labour Together group which went on to spearhead Starmer’s leadership campaign and his agenda since, launched an extraordinary attack on the Lawson decision on Sunday. Cruddas slammed a “right-wing, illiberal” faction he claimed were behind a “witch-hunt – not just of the Corbynite left but of mainstream democrats”.

Momentum claimed a rare parliamentary selection victory for the left over the weekend, however. Connor Naismith was picked for Crewe and Nantwich. Labour national executive committee (NEC) member Luke Akehurst argued it “rather contradicts all the whinging about every left candidate being blocked”, though selection watcher Michael Crick claims just a handful of left-wingers have been picked in over 100 winnable seats to date. A New Statesman on whether there’s “any hope for the Labour left” is worth a read this morning.

It’s worth watching too how the party react to former shadow chancellor John McDonnell’s intent to defy reported Labour orders to abstain on a second-reading bill today on banning councils from boycotting foreign governments. The group Labour & Palestine are also urging the party not to abstain, though apparently voting against it is not out of the question at its next reading.

The day in brief

In other news, in Bristol, tributes have been paid to former Labour MP Doug Naysmith, with local MPs praising his “huge contribution” to the city and the party. In Bolton West, Phil Brickell has been selected; Crick says he’s a local candidate who does anti-bribery and anti-corruption work for a bank. In Guardianland, the newspaper’s morning email is dedicated to a list of Labour U-turns.

And in Twitter-ville, Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury Pat McFadden appears to have decided Labour’s riposte to the Tories’ incessant “no money left” trolling: a regular drip-feed of the latest numbers of households hit by the “Tory mortgage bombshell”. The source for the numbers isn’t clear, but McFadden puts it at 1,097,987 this morning.

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