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She could start by asking what the government is doing to counter obesity among women from ethnic minorities. It is a specific, and major, health problem.

@2 Are you trying to suggest that she is unsuitable for the role because she is fat? Charles Clarke was even fatter, and he was Health Secretary.

@2 I rather hope she tears the coalition a new one over the pseudoprivatisation of the NHS.

I couldn’t agree more with Mr S Pill. A position for Chuka Umanna would also be a step in the right direction.

And who is the Public Health minister Diane Abbott is to shadow?

Step forward Ann Milton, Barts-trained and with 25 years experience in the NHS as a district nurse. Married to a doctor (who happens to be head of Public Health in East Surrey.)

And Diane? Well, her mum was a nurse. And she did apologize for slagging off “blonde, blue-eyed Finnish nurses”. And…er… that’s it.

None of those things will give Milton any more of a head start than any other person trained in politics, which is minimum requirements for the job – the experience you name might help her be a civvy again though, should she ever feel the need

@ 7

Yes Carl, you’re probably right. Besides, with a shadow chancellor who knows nothing about economics, a shadow foreign sec who hasn’t much form on abroad, and a party leader who’s the result of a sort of electoral accident, Diane’s ignorance and incompetence may well pass without public notice.

@8: “Besides, with a shadow chancellor who knows nothing about economics”

C’mon. It’s become increasingly painfully obvious that Osborne knows little to nothing about economics either – which perhaps isn’t surprising since he was an Oxford history graduate.

At least Anthony Barber, Nigel Lawson and Norman Lamont – previous chancellors in various Conservative governments – had PPE degrees from Oxford – but Winston Churchill, Neville Chamberlain, RAB Butler, Harold Macmillan, Thorneycroft, Selwyn Lloyd, Heathcoat-Amory, Geoffrey Howe, John Major and Kenneth Clarke, all Conservative chancellors, had no prior education in economics and relied on briefing from Treasury advisers.

Harold Macmillan, to his everlasting credit, wrote a book: The Middle Way, published in 1938, which was evidently a vain attempt to bring his political colleagues up to speed on the policy prescriptions of Keynesian economics for depressed or stagnant economies.

We can surely conclude on the evidence that it’s exceptional for chancellors to have had a prior education in economics. I’m surprised that this isn’t widely understood.

@6 that’s grossly unfair. Ms Abbott’s knowledge of health issues and commitment to scientific method/evidence – based medicine is clearly second to none, Otherwise why would she have signed two pro – homeopathy Early Day Motions? I mean, nothing says “extensive knowledge of health issues” quite like support for unproven “treatments” which lack a coherent theoretical base, does it?

Whereas Milton has written…

Homoeopathy and alternative treatments are a valuable resource for doctors to be able to draw upon when offering treatments. Where a doctor and a patient believe that a homoeopathic treatment may be of benefit to the patient, I believe they should be available and all therapies should be considered equally.

So the ministry for public health is now the ministry for woo and and we have a shadow woo-minister as well! God help us all…..