Choosing the next Prime Minister
First, can I suggest it would save everyone’s time and money if, next time, they have to choose a new Prime Minister, they did away with all the time-consuming jiggery-pokery when selecting a new leader?
My suggestion is shut all the candidates in the Cabinet Room. Announce Musical Chairs, start up the music and get the candidates running around the table, with one less chair than candidates. Each time the music stops, they sit down and then it is easy to eliminate the one person with no seat, taking away a chair – until there are two candidates left and one chair.
Whoever grabs the chair the next time the music stops will have demonstrated they are ruthless enough to be PM.
Alternatively, can I suggest Larry the Cat for PM?
Then the fun starts ……
As the new PM selects his/her Cabinet: heaven forbid the same person stays in post from the last regime, (even though they might be fairly good at the job, know the brief, etc) – that’s not how it works.
The new PM will want to award their cronies (choose on merit? – who’s being silly and idealistic?!). As far as the NHS is concerned, it will be a new Secretary of State in charge – this will be number 11 since the beginning of this century, as the current one (appointed this month) is bound to be shuffled around.
We could end up with Nadim Zahawi; on previous form he would seem a shoe-in: Secretary of State for Education from 2021 to 2022, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for COVID-19 Vaccine Deployment from 2020 to 2021 and Chancellor since July this year. Lots of experience in different jobs. Wonder why so many?
I’ve sort of come across him, when I was told by my GP that my medical history was so complex, I would have to find out myself if and which anti-Covid vaccine I could tolerate, I was a bit miffed to be told “Go away and find out – then tell me which one you can have”. So much for “ask your GP”. But it took me FOUR budy months to find out which one I could tolerate.
On the way I tried to consult Zhahawi, him being in charge of vaccines, surely he would be the ideal person to consult,. Silly me – three emails to his office got no response. So I asked my MP to make contact, but again nothing. Sounds familiar for those of us who ask the NHS for help – ergo I am sure the Whitehall boffins have him in their plans.
Future
Whoever is the next PM, you can be sure of one thing – they know the NHS desperately needs sorting out, but I wouldn’t bet on whoever it is doing anything about it
It’s acknowledged that the NHS is desperately short of staff; so why not look at ways of retaining those it has? e.g. sort out the Pension dilemma for elderly consultants and GPs – you made the rules, now UNdo them. And get real – with the majority of your staff – nurses and HCAs – paid £9.80 – £11.80 an hour, STOP asking them to pay for parking. That’s being really greedy.