Labour Party conference this week was another reminder that so many in the party are still not serious about governing the country.
Ignore the bond markets! Balance the Budget with an imaginary wealth tax! Say that Nigel Farage flirted with Hitler Youth! Just put Andy Burnham in charge of everything! The solutions that some MPs and even ministers put forward to Britain’s problems can be laughable in their naivety.
Even those with a bit more savvy are not always facing up to the scale of the national challenge – take Chancellor Rachel Reeves, who seems to believe that tinkering with relatively small taxes and topping up public spending by a few percentage points is an adequate substitute for radical reform of a state that sometimes looks close to collapse even as the tax burden hits a record high.
Labour activists left Liverpool generally happy with the way that Sir Keir Starmer saw off the immediate challenge to his leadership, sending Burnham packing before the conference was even over. They liked the way the Prime Minister is now taking the fight to Reform UK, and the progressive-friendly policies announced at the event.
But the Government is still deeply unpopular, even ahead of a Budget in November which is again likely to be dominated by painful tax hikes. And those policy problems, from immigration to housing to industrial strategy, have not been solved.
square POLITICS 'It was a car crash': How Reeves's relationship with big business collapsed
Read More
There is at least one exception to this catalogue of mediocrity: Health Secretary Wes Streeting. The Blairite street-fighter was one of the few top Cabinet ministers not moved in the recent reshuffle – and quite rightly, given he is actually making a success of his brief.
The Health Secretary has acknowledged what some in Labour hate to hear: that the problems with public services are not all down to money, and so cannot be solved simply with higher spending. Abolishing NHS England and taking on the inflated pay demands of the health unions shows that he is not afraid to take on the sacred cows of the health service.
“A lot of ministers were sucked into the civil service and lost touch with the party,” one senior Labour figure complained this week. “They need to be more political sometimes and know when to say no to civil servants.”
The source singled out Streeting, plus Energy Secretary Ed Miliband and Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, as exceptions to this lament – ministers who put some thought into how to make their decisions meaningful for voters who often feel that politics is being done to them, not with or for them.
Outside his Whitehall brief, too, Streeting shows a boldness that some of his colleagues – not least Starmer himself – cannot match.
He has called out Farage’s overblown rhetoric on migration loudly and unequivocally – a decision that one Streeting ally says is built on the calculation that if Labour is to take on Reform’s arguments, it should do so aggressively, rather than in the late and half-hearted way that the Prime Minister had gone about things before this week.
Streeting has also become a loud voice criticising Israel’s actions in Gaza, despite his reputation as one of the more pro-Israel voices in Labour, and openly denounced Donald Trump’s claims that paracetamol could be causing autism.
There is no doubt that Streeting is personally loyal to Starmer. But all this visibility will leave him well-positioned if and when a vacancy at the top does arise. Perhaps it is no coincidence that the Health Secretary led the karaoke on the last night of Labour conference – and was then seen in the nearby hotel bar chatting to party members well past 3am. He is keeping himself front of mind in the leadership conversation.
And he is not the only one – Mahmood, who has just been elected chair of Labour’s governing body, more or less admitted this week that she harbours leadership ambitions of her own. Asked whether she fancies a tilt at the top job, she responded that any politicians who deny that they want to become prime minister are “basically lying”.
Having sparky ministers who can make things happen and connect with the public is a good thing for Starmer and boosts his chances of survival in the long term.
But it is a double-edged sword: there are now at least two members of the Cabinet who look like plausible answers to that great question – if not Keir, then who?
And if MPs decide that there is a solution to the leadership quandary, it opens up a possible future of Labour without Starmer.
Hence then, the article about two ministers are looking like a good alternative to starmer was published today ( ) and is available on inews ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( Two ministers are looking like a good alternative to Starmer )
Also on site :
- Disgraced former Centinela Valley schools Superintendent Jose Fernandez dies
- Tyler Perry Sued for Sexual Assault By New Accuser, an Actor in a ‘Madea’ Movie
- New law revives dormant plans for solar plant near Mojave National Preserve