Streeting’s spat with Farage a glimpse of things to come

What used to be called a Twitter spat has broken out between the health secretary, Wes Streeting, and the self-styled disrupter Nigel Farage.

- SEAN O'GRADY

The Reform UK leader says that "the NHS needs Reform” while Streeting thinks it needs (lower-case) reform. They differ on the funding model, Streeting preferring to fix the current system, Farage advocating a French-style insurance system; but there are underlying questions of principle and an emerging willingness on the part of Labour to take Farage on. Streeting is a willing and effective attack dog, worthy of his populist opponent…

What’s the row?

Streeting made a speech attacking what is seen as Reform’s soft underbelly: its policy to introduce private sector insurance companies into the National Health Service. The health secretary turned Farage’s usual schtick against him, accusing Reform of offering only a “miserablist, declinist” vision of the UK, and peddling a false choice: “The crux of Farage’s argument is this: what was possible in the 20th Century isn’t possible in the 21st … People shouldn’t have to choose between a health service that treats them on time and an NHS free at the point of use.”