Wes Streeting has fired a warning shot at Downing Street over what he calls Labour’s “practical, technocratic approach” to government, claiming he is “pretty frustrated” by the poor comms strategy and the storytelling. But the Starmtroopers’ attempt to finish him off last month was just “water off a duck’s back”, if you can believe it…
Speaking to the New Statesman (with the obligatory brooding portrait in front of DHSC), Streeting said:
“The problem with that kind of practical, technocratic approach is that if someone else comes along and says, ‘Well, I’ve got a maintenance company too, and mine’s cheaper,’ why wouldn’t people go, ‘OK, well, we’ll give that maintenance team a try… I feel like on one hand, since we’ve come into government, we’ve actually done a huge amount that we said we’d do… But that’s not reflected in the polls, and I don’t think it’s even reflected in our storytelling. I think we sell ourselves short.”
“I’m definitely not indulging any of that. I think we had quite enough of that with the drive-by the other week. The level of silliness we saw [then] was like panto season come early. So I think the answer to your question is: oh no, he’s not.”
Paula Barker, Liverpool Wavertree MP backing Andy Burnham, told Times Radio there wouldn’t be trouble from the markets under Burnham:
“The markets will have to fall in line.”