The Everton legend spoke to the ECHO at Labour conference in Liverpool
Everton legend Neville Southall called for a “new kind of politics” that serves the people as he sent a message to Sir Keir Starmer. Mr Southall spoke to the ECHO at the Labour Party conference in Liverpool as he attended a round-table discussion on building an NHS fit for the future, led by Liverpool Health Partners.
The former goalkeeper, who played a record 751 times for Everton, has never been afraid to share his political views – often taking aim at the Conservative Party on social media. He endorsed Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party at the 2017 general election and is a vocal advocate of trade unions and LGBTQ+ rights.
Asked about Sir Keir Starmer’s government’s start to life in power, Mr Southall told the ECHO: “It’s like any other business when you take over, you don’t know quite what’s in there until you get in. Whatever they do for the first six months, it’s going to be up and down.
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“It’s going to be ‘we didn’t know this and we didn’t know that’, so some of the decisions they might have to take will be forced on them. There’s no way around that and they could be unpopular.
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“They (the previous government) run the country down, then somebody takes over, blames the last one and then someone else runs the country. It’s a perpetual circle I think so I just think we need to have a new kind of politics. Hopefully Labour will bring a new kind of politics and it will be for the people, not for the government.”
The roundtable discussion that Mr Southall contributed to had the aim of addressing a staffing crisis in the NHS and to explore how to create job opportunities in the health service for people from disadvantaged communities. The Llandudno-born goalkeeper said that fixing the NHS should be Sir Keir Starmer’s priority in power.
He explained: “Everybody knows there’s a hole in the NHS and everybody blames everyone else, but nobody is fixing it. What we really need is to go ‘right, actually, let’s fix it’.
“If you fix it properly – once and for all – it might be hard work, there will be some harsh things to be done, but you’ve got to fix it. We need to make sure we look after all of the people in the country, not just the top. For me, it’s about evening up the funding so that people get the support that they need.”
Mr Southall, 66, also said it was too early to judge Sir Keir as a leader but he believes the Prime Minister has a tough job ahead of him. He said: “It’s not going to be an easy ride for him.
“At the same time, nobody knows what’s in the cupboard until they open the door. I think he probably will be shocked about some of the stuff that has gone on behind the scenes.
“It’s going to be like anything else. You’re going to have your honeymoon period, you have to make some tough decisions which people will live with for a while and the real-life nitty-gritty gets going. Then we’ll see – until then you can’t really judge.”