Wes Streeting has resigned from government. He used the announcement of new NHS data today, which shows he has successfully cut waiting lists as Health Secretary, as the opportunity to tender his resignation and air a long list of grievances with the Prime Minister.
It is notable in the letter that health and social care is the one area on which Streeting holds fast with Starmer, telling him “I am pleased to report that I have delivered against the ambitious targets you set me.” It is everything else that is the problem.
While politely noting Starmer’s “great strengths that I admire”, Streeting’s letter methodically lays out all of the criticisms of his leadership that have been bubbling away in the Labour party for not just months, but years and across both the left and right of the party.
“Where we need vision, we have a vacuum. Where we need direction, we have drift,” Streeting writes, attacking Starmer’s much-commented-on lack of political drive and the absence of a programme of Starmerism.
He attacks the Prime Minister’s political missteps and misjudged rightward lurches, specifically noting the “island of strangers” speech on immigration (which Starmer apologised for post-delivery, with a claim that he had not properly read it).
Streeting criticises Starmer’s repeated sacking of senior advisers and officials in times of political pressure, writing: “Leaders take responsibility, but too often that has meant other people falling on their swords.”
And Streeting condemns Starmer’s punishing attitude to dissent within the PLP, alluding to the repeated suspension of backbenchers who disagreed with the party line on issues like welfare: “You also need to listen to your colleagues, including backbenchers, and the heavy-handed approach to dissenting voices diminishes our politics.”
There is also, of course, a precis of last week’s disastrous election results. Streeting tells Starmer that his lack of vision and direction “was underscored by your speech on Monday”, saying publicly what many senior Labour figures thought: that the PM’s disappointing “make or break” speech was a final proof that he was not the man to save Labour from its current malaise.
Overall, Streeting gives the impression of a man who has been seething about the conduct of this government for two years, right from that first unpopular decision to means-test the winter fuel allowance, which he derides in the letter.
He also sets out a range of global challenges that reach way beyond his brief as Health Secretary and concludes: “These are big challenges that require a bold vision and bigger solutions than we are offering.” He is clearly rehearsing to be the person with that vision and those solutions.
He concludes: “It is now clear that you will not lead the Labour Party into the next general election and that Labour MPs and Labour Unions want the debate about what comes next to be a battle of ideas, not of personalities or petty factionalism. It needs to be broad, and it needs the best possible field of candidates. I support that approach and I hope that you will facilitate this.”
This is perhaps the most interesting passage in what was an otherwise predictable airing of widely-held grievances. In it, Streeting appears to be encouraging a leadership contest in which Andy Burnham is allowed to stand as a candidate.
While there was paranoia on the left of Labour that Streeting’s decision to break with Starmer now was motivated by a desire to stitch up a quick contest in which Burnham couldn’t stand, he is now welcoming a longer timetable for Starmer’s departure in which a “broad field” of candidates can stand.
It means that the political will for allowing Burnham to return to parliament, if he can find a seat, will now be practically unstoppable. When he does return, that “battle of ideas” can commence.
[Further reading: Does Wes Streeting have the numbers?]
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