AIBU to predict Streeting will resign tomorrow & trigger leadership contest.

[Twiglets1]

Wes Streeting will reportedly resign as Health Secretary and trigger a leadership contest against Keir Starmer and it could be as soon as tomorrow.

Allies of Mr Streeting said he was “going to go for it” after he met the Prime Minister in Downing Street for just 16 minutes this morning.

A spokesman for the Health Secretary said he would not discuss his brief meeting with Sir Keir over fears it would overshadow the King’s Speech, which will take place later today at 11.40.

AIBU to assume that Streeting is in the final stages of preparing a coup for the Labour leadership and will very likely make his move tomorrow?

Does Wes think he is more palatable to the public then? Delusional.

I agree about there being no guarantee of a seat. I voted Labour in the last election (although am not someone who always does) and if my Labour MP stood down for Burnham, I’d vote against him out of principle tbh. Force a by election, and a mayoral election just so you can become an MP and force a leadership election? Piss off. Go and do the job you campaigned for and were elected for, and stop wasting my time.

I’ve nothing against Burnham generally, but I don’t know why people have got the idea in their heads that he will be some sort of saviour, swooping in to the rescue.

@WhatAMarvelousTune I made this “saviour” point on another thread and I was told (1) he has a proven track record from his work in Manchester and (2) he has the charisma and personality required in these difficult times.
it doesn’t answer your well-made points though!

My DD works in the NHS, somethings have improved, they got more money for more staff, which has led to shorter waiting lists but also a huge cost cutting exercise, both in community teams and the district hospital...
most of which has fallen on staff....

So they used to have access to 'pool cars to see rural patients, thats gone, its "use your own car or patient will have to come to us"

Not great for either.

That's not quite true that he who wields the knife never wears the crown. Maggie Thatcher did it, for one.

My husband works in the NHS and it's all cuts, cuts, cuts.

Streeting can't perform miracles given that no one wants to pay more tax and the demand on the NHS is ever expanding. He seems to be doing a decent job though within the very tight budget constraints.

TBH I think he is leaving it a bit late.

He seemed a bit of a laughing stock this afternoon in the HoC. That's what happens when other people have the mic and platform and you have nothing.

On Monday Tuesday it felt like he had the momentum, but now it feels like it is ebbing away.

If he doesn't challenge now for the leadership he is finished I think.

Which then means we are waiting for Burnham to come up with something.

The lack of the best challenger in the HoC and the difficulty of the challenging process has kept Starmer in power.

But he is crippled in the long term and I can't see his continuation of the leadership doing Labours prospects any good at all. He's just waiting around for either Burnham to return or something else to crop up and finish him off.

I am really surprised he survived.

Survived so far @GasPanic

Couldn't agree more.
I find all the ministers circling/threatening leadership bids/resigning in protest etc most unedifying.
I'd rather they all just got on with their jobs.

She wasn't a he and the crown-wearer was Heath.

Yes I agree, disappointed at the seemingly faux passion then ☹️

Some of us remember Burnham when he was an MP. Was ok but tended to blow with the wind a bit. The fact he went for leader twice should tell some sort of tale. Granted he exudes passion when he speaks and perhaps might be a good future leader, and is a very popular Mayor, but this comes down to personality politics. It’s just the wrong time and I would also hold him in higher esteem if he also stayed committed to his current role, and delayed any future new leadership aims

She was like a man.

Heath appointed her Secretary of State for Education and Science in his 1970–1974 government. In 1975 she defeated him in the Conservative Party leadership election to become Leader of the Opposition and the first woman to lead a major British political party.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Thatcher#:~:text=Edward%20Heath%20appointed%20her%20Secretary,a%20major%20British%20political%20party.

Seriously despair of this personality and charisma crap. Being PM is serious and deserves more than someone who just appeals because of personality. No wonder Farage and Polanski are popular. And Burnham. Do we not learn from the BJ days and Brexit vote etc

Yes all this King of North stuff is suspect. Why has Andy Burnham been rejected twice already? The Labour Party shouldn’t be looking through candidates like they have yellow stickers in a supermarket

Margaret Thatcher was an outsider when she challenged Edward Heath for leadership of the Conservative Party. It was considered unlikely that she would get the number of votes required to force a second ballot. For example, The Economist magazine commented that she was "precisely the sort of candidate... who ought to be able to stand, and lose, harmlessly".

BBC Archive: Originally broadcast 31 January 1975.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/videos/cp3g3lzx2rko

@Twiglets1, She wasn't like a man. She was a steely woman who was both feared and admired by men.
She had a lot of qualities as a leader (not necessarily ones I agreed with).
Heath was unpopular and it wasn't Thatcher who wielded the knife.

Of course she would lose harmlessly, she was a woman wasn't she. Only she wasn't like most women.

Look at us now 50 years later and we're still treated as little women who should know their place, not rock any boats, smile nicely and do as we're told.

Yellow stickers in a supermarket, lol.

He was passionately pro Corbyn at one point too. Then passionately anti. None of it is real.

He is a slimy mendacious little weasel. More fake and insincere than Tony Blair, which is saying something.

Whether people want to pay more tax is neither here nor there. We are paying more.

The question is where it is going.

Maybe she pushed the knife in ever so gently. She became leader of the Conservative party.

Burnham was a far second to Jeremy Corbyn in the 2015 leadership election. And fourth out of five when Ed Milliband became leader. No doubt he has flourished as Mayor of Manchester but when at Westminster previously clearly wasn’t the flavour of the month.

Disagree it's neither here nor there. We could be paying more, and would need to in order to properly fund the NHS.

Distant second to Jeremy Corbyn!

Andy Burnham is the “one day until use by date” coleslaw of Labour.

But we are paying more.

its just hopelessly bloated.