{"id":7414,"date":"2020-05-10T18:48:10","date_gmt":"2020-05-10T18:48:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/?p=7414"},"modified":"2020-05-10T18:48:11","modified_gmt":"2020-05-10T18:48:11","slug":"tone-deaf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/?p=7414","title":{"rendered":"Tone deaf"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
Dr Rosena Allin-Khan\/flipboard<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

There has been some debate about labelling our NHS workers as\n\u2018heroes\u2019, and I have seen a number of quotes from various members of the medical\nprofession pointing out that they aren\u2019t heroes, just people doing an extremely\nchallenging job at a very difficult time. Indeed, because of the connection\nbetween the military and heroes, it has been noted in some quarters that they\ncould be perceived as expendable, rather like in wartime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This and similar debates will rumble on, but I want to\nconfess my total admiration for one doctor in my locality who surely ticks all\nthe boxes in the hero category.  Of\ncourse, Rosena Allin-Khan isn\u2019t just a medical consultant working on the front\nline at St. George\u2019s, one of London\u2019s major teaching hospitals, she also\nhappens to be the MP for Tooting in south London and Shadow Cabinet Minister\nfor Mental Health.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In my view, Allin-Khan represents the very best of what this country can offer. She has a Polish mother and Pakistani father and grew up in a poor household.  At 18 she would have been classified as an academic failure as she failed all her \u2018A\u2019 levels.  Yet six years later she was reading medicine at Cambridge and has a Master\u2019s degree in public health. She subsequently worked in disaster zones across the world.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She recently said: \u2018The Labour party did change my life and gave me opportunities that wouldn\u2019t have happened under the status quo. It wouldn\u2019t have been possible for someone with a background like mine to have gone to medical school otherwise.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Allin-Khan was elected as MP the day that Jo Cox was murdered in 2016.  She was Shadow Minister for Sport under Jeremy Corbyn\u2019s leadership, and in case you are wondering why, my new heroine is also an amateur boxer. I am genuinely wondering how she fits all this in \u2013 have I mentioned that she has a husband and two children under six?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Until recently few people outside south London had heard of Allin-Khan;\nshe was one of the early candidates for deputy leader of the Labour party in\nthe 2020 ballot, but when Covid-19 took hold she abandoned her bid to go and\nwork with patients at St. George\u2019s and at the new Nightingale Hospital in East London.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It all changed when last week she asked a question in Parliament of \u2018Hancock the Hapless Health Secretary\u2019.  Allin-Khan noted that the government\u2019s failures were contributing to a greater loss of life and she wanted answers on its testing strategy. Hancock\u2019s response was straight out of The Sexist Handbook<\/em>. He suggested that what she was saying was not true and that she \u2018might do well to take a leaf out of the shadow secretary of state\u2019s book in terms of tone\u2019. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here we go again. Does anyone remember David Cameron telling Angela Eagle, Shadow Treasury Secretary to \u2018Calm down, dear\u2019? What about Labour MP Tracy Brabin being trolled in the Commons for her dress slipping off her shoulder while leaning at the despatch box with a broken ankle? If the details of \u2018Shouldergate\u2019 have gone fuzzy do look back at: https:\/\/damesnet.com\/?p=7198<\/a>. Allin-Khan asked a perfectly respectful, factual question. Hancock added to the litany of lies he has already told and managed to be rude and sexist as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No need to worry; Allin-Khan, who is working 12-hour shifts with very sick patients and in my view is worth 10 Hancocks, tweeted the entire sorry exchange and in her words: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

‘If Matt Hancock found my tone difficult, that’s on him…I will not ‘watch my tone’ when dozens of NHS and care staff are dying unnecessarily.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ain\u2019t that a dame?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Allin-Khan, who is working 12-hour shifts with very sick patients and in my view is worth 10 Hancocks<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":7422,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[270,69,132,276,269,65,56,159,59],"tags":[271,247,133,277,272,35,92,160,82],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7414"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7414"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7414\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7441,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7414\/revisions\/7441"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}