RACHEL REEVES ‘WILL BOUNCE BACK’ SAYS HEALTH SECRETARY WES STREETING
CHANCELLOR Rachel Reeves “will bounce back” after her emotional episode in the Commons yesterday, Health Secretary Wes Streeting has predicted.
Speaking to GB News, he said: “She’s not just my colleague, she’s my friend. And I think there are lots of people who are watching, who will think about some of our own experiences from time to time, where we’ve had things going on in our lives outside of work that sometimes you bring to work with you, and that yesterday was one of those occasions.
“But unlike most people, when you’re on the front line in politics, you are both at work and on camera, and that’s what we saw yesterday. But look, she’s a tough character. She will bounce back.
“We’ve seen in Rachel’s leadership over the last year, a Chancellor that’s got interest rates falling four times, wages finally rising higher than the cost of living. She’s gripped the public finances, dealt with the mess that we inherited, and she’s got the economy moving in the right direction.
“She’s a human being, but she’s also a tough cookie as our Chancellor and will be back to work. She was yesterday afternoon getting on with the job.”
Asked if she needed a break, he added: ”No. Of course, it’s right for her to continue and look, just on the on the toughness of the job, whether it’s the Prime Minister, the Chancellor, any of the rest of us in government, these are tough jobs. They’re demanding jobs.
“But also, and I think I speak for the entire cabinet when I say this, but the last 12 months have certainly been the best year of my professional life, because in government, you get to wake up in the morning saying what we’re doing today. In opposition, you wake up every morning thinking what we’re going to say today.
“And I know which one I prefer, and it is thanks to the choices people made at the last election that we get to come into work every day gripping the challenges facing our country.
“That’s why we’ve been able to, you know, for example, cut NHS waiting lists, taking them down by a quarter of a million, the two million more appointments that we promised to deliver in our first year, we’ve more than doubled that.
“I said, within weeks of coming to office that we would employ 1,000 more GPs onto the front line. Latest figures show actually we’re almost double that.
“So, you know, tough job, sure, but it’s what we signed up for. And we love doing this. We love serving our country.
“We want to make a difference. We want to make the change that people voted for, and that’s what all of us get up doing every single day on behalf of the country.”
