She lives! I must admit I had been getting worried about Victoria Atkins. Ever since Rishi Sunak called the general election she has been missing in action. As indeed have all of her cabinet colleagues. Poor Rish! has been left to tour the home counties – he’s hardly ventured anywhere north of Birmingham – on his own while the rest of his team have slipped off the radar. She couldn’t even be bothered to make an appearance when junior doctors announced they were continuing strike action. Obviously that was of no interest to a health secretary.
So it was a relief to discover that Vicky has not died and is not otherwise incapacitated. Well, not much. Either that or she sent a body double on to the Sunday morning politics’ shows to speak on behalf of the government and to show that – for an hour at least – she was right behind the Conservatives’ campaign to get re-elected. Though she might well go back into hiding after that. Any Tory MP with serious career ambitions is trying to distance themselves from Rish!.
Atkins was all smiles on both the Laura Kuenssberg show and Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips. Positively beaming with good vibes. In fact I’d go so far as to say I’ve never seen her looking so happy.
So why so cheerful? Could it be that in her 10 days on a silent retreat she’s managed to avoid the poll suggesting the Tories face an electoral wipeout? Or is she just pretty chilled about the situation? Que sera, sera. Looking forward to at least five years of R&R in opposition. Or maybe she had been up all night at a party with Michael Gove. Trying to stave off the inevitable comedown.
Now here’s the thing. Our Vicky is something of an enigma. Often labelled as one of the higher-functioning Tory ministers without any evidence for how she might have gained that reputation. Other than not being Grant Shapps or Jeremy Hunt. Her self-confidence is off the scale. She appears to believe her own hype. Now where’s a bit of impostor syndrome when you need it? Most normal people are prone to self-doubt. Especially when tasked with running something as large as the NHS. Atkins just takes it all in her stride. A slightly brighter Liz Truss.
Kuenssberg began with the Tories’ latest promise to open 100 more GP surgeries. Wasn’t that a con as they had already closed 400 since 2013? Not what most people would call a like-for-like replacement. Vicky’s grin grew even wider. Her promise was to restore promises. To put in train training. The babbleometer was off the scale. What she wanted was for everyone in the country to be able to see their GP at least once a day. Twice if necessary. Or something like that.
Better still, she was cutting the funding for pharmacists so that they could see all those patients who needed to see a health professional for a third time in a day. Atkins was entirely confident that, with a bit of practice, pharmacists would be able to do open heart surgery in the back room of their premises. By the end of the next parliament, they would be qualified to perform lobotomies on government ministers.
We then moved on to hospital waiting lists. If you tracked the graph since the Tories came into office in 2010, waiting lists had consistently risen. Vicky was quick with an answer. It was all down to the pandemic. Send for a doctor! The health secretary thinks Covid began 10 years before 2020. Oh, said Atkins. Then it must have been something to do with the last Labour government. Because they had also been in power since 2010? Whatever drugs she had been taking, they weren’t working any more. She even started hallucinating about the 40 hospitals that haven’t been built. Magical realism is now in the Tory party manifesto.
Trevor Phillips broadened the discussion a bit. Take immigration. How was she going to fill the 180,000 vacancies in health and social care? Especially if she was planning to deport the 300,000 or so overseas health professionals already working in the UK? Ah, said Vicky. What you had to remember was that two contradictory things could both be true. There were actually loads of Brits who had no idea just how much they wanted to fill those jobs. The training was no bother. Twenty minutes at most.
The interview ended with Trevor bringing up the four recent defections to Labour. Wasn’t that a sign that some Tories had given up? For the first time Vicky looked puzzled. Why hadn’t she thought of that herself? That could have saved her so much grief. No need to have to come on to shows like this to talk what she knew was bollocks just to keep Rish! sweet. Easy Street was tantalisingly close. It’s not too late Vicks. It’s not too late.
Meanwhile, Yvette Cooper was channelling her inner misery. No one could ever accuse her of enjoying her job. These shows are now an ordeal for a shadow home secretary whom everyone expects to be in government in under five weeks, as people rightly expect to hear answers. And there aren’t any. At least none that survive contact with reality. If taxes and borrowing aren’t to go up, then where is the money coming from? Other than by slashing departmental budgets. So there was little that Yvette could do but to deadbat every question. It made for a gruelling 15 minutes on both channels.
Laura began with the Diane Abbott row. Was Diane going to stand? “I’m very glad it’s all resolved,” Cooper said. But it isn’t. “I’m very glad it’s all resolved,” Yvette repeated twice more. So were leftwing MPs being bribed with peerages to give up their seats? “That’s not how the system works,” Yvette insisted, sounding irritable. Sorry? That’s exactly how the system works. You know it, we all know it. That’s how the most ridiculous people end up in the Lords. Ian Botham. Michelle Mone. Evgeny Lebedev. Charlotte Owen. Shall I go on?
On immigration, Cooper was equally tight-lipped. Labour would be doing things very differently to the Conservatives but in many ways would also be identical. Make sense? “I’m sorry but I’m not going to give you a number for how many fewer migrants we would allow in to the country,” Yvette said. That was top secret. A need to know basis. She’d have to kill us etc. No wonder. If you cut immigration then the NHS and social care fall to pieces. And still no one mentioned Brexit.
Mercifully, we came to a close. Yvette was left to her inner world of pain. She could have done with some of whatever Michael Gove was having.
