Early Edition with Kate Hawkesby

Health has always been a portfolio MPs never want a bar of. You never win. Endless fights with the unions. People waiting for surgery. Constant pressure to keep up with technology. And it’s deeply personal for those who don’t get the care they need - it’s literally life-and-death stuff. So if the numbers Simeon Brown is putting out are to be believed—and I’ve no reason to doubt them—then he deserves some credit. Cancer wait times, immunisations, elective surgeries, and ED numbers are all heading in the right direction. It’s by no means “job done,” and some of the movement is only a few percent—quarter-on-quarter comparisons. But for a government the media would have you believe is traditionally stingy and ineffective in health, at least we now have measurable results to compare. And they’re not terrible. Labour will come out today and slam this. They’ll say grandma’s hip operation is being farmed out to the private sector. And you know what grandma will say? Who cares—I’ve got a new hip. This is all short-ter