Wes Streeting announces we have 1,000 days to prepare for war.

Sorry for the profanity but I think most politicians,including him, are tossers. More and more so as the years go by.

nanna8 I think in the Labour most are and have no experience of the real world. Failing their briefs but promoted up to fail again.

Ah! The allegedly left-leaning Gransnet and an excuse to bash a right wing Labour MP writing in a Tory newspaper.

A new Prime Minister choses their own cabinet ministers. Completely unheard of in the history of government!

Streeting resigned as Health Secretary as a pre-emptive strike as part of the coup against Starmer. Reeves was much maligned as Chancellor. It was inevitable there would be change. What Healey, who resigned over defence spending and is now Chancellor will do about that, we shall soon find out.

Shall we take a look at the ministerial churn in 14 years of the previous government?

2010-2024

Health Secretaries - eight in 14 years.

Andrew Lansley (2010 – 2012)

Jeremy Hunt (2012 - 2018) Responsible for the UK’s unpreparedness for the pandemic by ignoring the findings if Operation Cygnet.

Matt Hancock (2018 - 2021)

Sajid Javid (2021 – 2022)

Steve Barclay (2022 – 2022)

Thérèse Coffey (2022 – 2022)

Steve Barclay (2022 - 2023)

Victoria Atkins (2023 – 2024)

Defence Secretaries - seven in 14 years.

Liam Fox (2010–2011)

Philip Hammond (2011–2014)

Michael Fallon (2014–2017)

Gavin Williamson (2017–2019)

Penny Mordaunt (2019 -2019)

Ben Wallace (2019–2023)

Grant Shapps (2023–2024)

To my knowledge, Ben Wallace was the only Minister with any practical experience of the military but he neither served for very long nor was particularly senior.

Practical experience of a professional won’t give anyone the necessary of skills to be a Minister, no more than being a nurse would make someone a good Health Secretary or a bookkeeper a good Chancellor.

And just to throw this in for the Reform fans. If we were to have a snap election and Reform won, who would Farage appoint to those positions? His party doesn’t even have official spokespersons or polices for those ministries.

Most of the current government are from working class or middle class backgrounds so will have an experience of the "real world". Most of the previous Conservative government were privately educated from the upper middle class and Reform UK is run by millionaires.

Good point MollyNew....

Practical experience of a professional won’t give anyone the necessary of skills to be a Minister
I disagree. My uncle was a physician and Minister for Health. He pushed for the UK to produce its own blood products domestically to eliminate reliance on imported blood and reduce public health risks. And several other achievements related to his medical training.

Peacelilydilly

Its like musical chairs with the Labour Party, Wes Streeting Health Secretary one minute then in charge of Defence. John Healey Defence now Chancellor. God help us. Why can't we have politicians who actually have know what they are doing and have real experience in their brief.

That’s exactly what it’s like in EVERY political party in the UK, not just the LP!

I agree though that only those with some experience in their areas should go into those roles, however one could argue that they are not “lone warriors”, they extremely experienced, knowledgable and skilled senior civil servants and personal advisors supporting them.

* they have

MT62

FriedGreenTomatoes2

Also, a thought. Nothing like broadcasting how weak and ill prepared we actually are right now.

Yep 👍🏻

As if those against us nation wise didnt know? As if those who follow the news anyway didnt know

The O/P is revealed as being conflation by Graphite's post at 9.53 am above.

Of course the public need to know: its the budget this week, if we are going to be asked for more money tax wise (and its looking at the very rich as well as a bit from us all) for defences

how will the public understand this budget without information

I'm sorry you are past caring, FGT, for there are a whole raft of needful changes........like improving hospital waiting lists and A and E and so on..like the drought that brought to so much awareness the need to tackle climate change as well as prison numbers....like caring support for huge numbers of the public....

We get what we pay for, once proper management is in place for these services and so on.