[Samanfur]

I do wonder who will get health now...

Well, Rayner's not got a portfolio right now.

[mattomac]

I suppose the question now is whether any more cabinet ministers follow Streeting out the door, and if so how many, to try to force Starmer to resign, in the manner of Boris Johnson. If that happens, I may well be ending my time as a Labour Party member, as I view that as unacceptable. If Keir sticks to his guns and fights off any leadership challenge that may yet come, from Streeting or others, I will stay in order to vote for Keir as leader.

But Labour absolutely must not emulate the worst period of the Tories’ rule in this.

In two minds whether to go before or after any leadership election if Starmer is defeated, then again as Union member I should get a vote via that I think.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Streeting.

The only question that matters in government is whether we leave our successors a better situation than we inherited. Ambulance response times for heart attacks and strokes are now the fastest in five years. A&E waiting times are improving, with four-hour waiting figures also the best in five years. We’ve recruited 2,000 more GPs and satisfaction has risen from 60 per cent to 74.5 per cent since we came to office. We hit our target of recruiting 8,500 mental health staff three years early. We’ve achieved this at the same as balancing the books for the first time in nine years and smashing the 2 per cent NHS productivity target by achieving 2.8 per cent, which means the investment we’re putting in goes further and that the public can have greater confidence that their money is being well-spent.
None of this would have been achieved without the brilliant leadership team of ministers, officials, and special advisers we have established in the Department of Health and Social Care and the NHS – superbly led by Samantha Jones and Sir Jim Mackey, who has been a knight in shining armour and a brilliant leader of 1.5 million staff upon whom all this success depends.
The National Health Service is the embodiment of all that is best about Britain and our values. Thanks to our Labour government, it is on the road to recovery: lots done, but so much more to do.

Which (assuming all of this is true) is great. Perhaps Wes could reflect on who provided the money to do this, and how the tax rises necessary might have contributed to their unpopularity. Now that's all happened under the old Health structure. Wes has insisted on a new one, has been backed by the Prime Minister do deliver it, and he fucks off.

[Boiler]

In two minds whether to go before or after any leadership election if Starmer is defeated, then again as Union member I should get a vote via that I think.

Unfortunately my union - as part of Prospect - is non-aligned.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Rayner, if the facts are as reported, does seem to have been lucky. You'll be surprised to know that the idiots who were attacking Dan for the Polanski problem are once again very much in evidence.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Streeting calls for leadership contest with 'best possible candidates' - saying Labour must offer 'bigger solutions'"

The Bigger Solutions Party should run in the next election. They'd get about 80%.

[Tubby Isaacs]

This person would be well advised to lock herself in her study and catch up on constituency work. She now tells us the PM who needed to be challenged isn't actually that bad?

Catherine West says she would not rule out voting for Starmer in leadership election - despite having led calls for contest
The former minister Catherine West kicked off the Labour leadership speculation when she announced on Saturday that, if no cabinet minister launched a challenge, she would try to stand as a candidate herself.

Since then she has rather changed her tune. On Monday she said she was not standing as a candidate, but was urging Labour MPs to back calls for a contest.

Today, in an interview on the World at One, West said that she would not rule out voting for Keir Starmer herself.

[Boiler]

Spotted this in the Guardian's BTL:

Screenshot 2026-05-14 at 15-01-12 Streeting resigns as health secretary but stops short of launching leadership bid - UK politics live.png (45.93 KiB) Viewed 149 times

I'm surprised the Guardian let that stand.

[Tubby Isaacs]

I do wonder who will get health now...

Well, Rayner's not got a portfolio right now.

Would be a very good solution, I think. No need to reshuffle either. And not actually that hard for her to row back from where she is at the moment. "Well, Robin (Day/Oakley- Christ, can we have them back), I've always said what I mean, and we need more people in politics who do that. I saw the local election results, just like you did. If someone had come forward and said they could do better, I'd have been all ears. Nobody has. Let's all get on with the job. I'm not Wes's greatest fan, as you've probably gathered, but we've made good progress at Health. I'm very proud to take lead the Department into the next phase where we can really start to improve the structure that we inherited from the Tories"

[Tubby Isaacs]

"Angela Rayner, have you done a deal with Andy Burnham?

Robin, Robin, I'm a Manchester MP and he's the Greater Manchester mayor. So we talk a lot..

Have you made a deal?

No. Next?"

[Tubby Isaacs]

Oh look who's shown up. I thought he was supposed to be a policy heavyweight, not a relayer of gossip that he's picked up from Wes Streeting's mates.

On the same programme, Stephen Bush, the FT commentator, said that Streeting does have more than 80 Labour MPs who would like to see him become leader. But he pointed out that some of those are in government, and reluctant to start a process that could lead to them leading their jobs.

Here's an MP I'd never heard of. Hopefully I don't hear much about him for a long time, and all.

The Labour MP Alan Gemmell was also on the World at One. He is a leading Wes Streeting supporter, and he was interviewed on the programme in effect as a quasi spokesperson for the campaign.

He claimed Streeting did have the support of 81 Labour MPs (enough to launch a leadership challenge). He said:

[Streeting] has the support of the right number, of more than 81 MPs in the party.
But he’s taken a principled decision today not to trigger that contest … It’s clear in conversations with MPs and with the unions that the party wants a discussion, a battle of ideas, an open contest, a broad contest for the direction that we should take and how we fix the problems that we’re in.

We'd be better off with Archie Gemmill.

"Battle of ideas". It's a government, not the school debating society. There's a manifesto and the King's Speech. Of course, things can be added to that, taken out, amended. But the idea it could all be chucked on the basis of an internal battle of ideas without a general election is laughable. Good luck with running on a pitch of "you know that last thing we put before you? It was rubbish! We're putting something else before you! Vote for this!"

[soulboy]

This person would be well advised to lock herself in her study and catch up on constituency work. She now tells us the PM who needed to be challenged isn't actually that bad?

Catherine West says she would not rule out voting for Starmer in leadership election - despite having led calls for contest
The former minister Catherine West kicked off the Labour leadership speculation when she announced on Saturday that, if no cabinet minister launched a challenge, she would try to stand as a candidate herself.

Since then she has rather changed her tune. On Monday she said she was not standing as a candidate, but was urging Labour MPs to back calls for a contest.

Today, in an interview on the World at One, West said that she would not rule out voting for Keir Starmer herself.

“The Prime Minister is the right man for the moment”*



* A quote from The Thick Of It. West is giving off strong Nicola Murray vibes

[mattomac]

They've fucked this up so badly.

[Tubby Isaacs]

The PM can give a "put up or shut up" speech (preferably without resigning as the leader of the party, why did Major do that?). The MPs then agree that they can't agree on a successor. And it's all back to work, with a new Health Secretary (Rayner, Angela).

This won't happen.

[Tubby Isaacs]

This isn't particularly nasty given the circumstances, but why even go this far? Just say, he doesn't have the numbers, the Cabinet aren't revolting, let's all get on.

This is from Newsnight’s Nicholas Watt on the anti-Streeting briefing coming out this afternoon from Keir Starmer’s supporters.

Breaking: Wes Streeting is unlikely to be on Keir Starmer’s Christmas card list for some time. This is what a Starmer ally has told me:
“Wes has failed the most basic rule of politics: he can’t count. He never had the numbers. We counted and counted and counted and recounted. The highest number we got for Wes was 44. We could not see how he could get higher than that.
We knew that, Wes will have known that. So all that stuff from Wes about how he is resigning in the party interest to allow a broad debate is a load of old guff. He never had the numbers.
So what does Wes do when he doesn’t have the number? He seeks to brief his way out of a difficult position.
So his closest ally resigns from the government. Then he briefs that the cabinet are turning on Keir. No they’re not. So the government goes on. We will appoint a new health secretary.
The sad thing is we have a good story to tell today. Good growth. But nobody is talking about that.”

[Tubby Isaacs]

I'm at the risk of sounding like the Iraqi information guy here. Perhaps things aren't all right in the Cabinet. I'd like to see a few more of them coming out. But if you're trying to make the case, do it in a straightforward way.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Well, Rayner's not got a portfolio right now.

I read that as a Portillo for a second. Is she going to be installing phone lines? John Major made a very good joke about this, how the efficiency was a testament to the efficiency of privatization.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Just to prove these are strange times, Ed Davey has made a good point.

Perhaps now we’ll get a health secretary who will take on social care, rather than dodge it because it’s hard. Who will end corridor care, not preside over its worst ever year. Labour needs to get a grip.

Streeting did indeed put care off too long, and his hope for cross party agreement (after the way Corbyn savaged May and Cameron savaged Brown for short term advantage) is ridiculous. There are loads of plans out there. Choose one, and get on with it. It'll take a certain amount of political skill. Luckily there's a skillful political operator with personal experience of the sharp end of care available. Somebody should appoint her Health Secretary.

[Boiler]

Well, if the self-serving little shit hasn't got the numbers he can fuck off to the back benches and leave governing to the grown-ups.

Now, what vain hope is there that the media will just STFU now?

[Tubby Isaacs]

The numbers go to another school, evidently.

Wes can follow the sign saying "Have you got bigger ideas? Follow the signs this way!" It leads to the backbenches and the rubber chicken circuit.