Rayner saying what Cabinet is feeling, Streeting says

Angela Rayner’s warnings about the direction of the Labour Party reflect what Sir Keir Starmer and his Cabinet are thinking, Wes Streeting has suggested.

The Health Secretary insisted the Government welcomed a “battle of ideas” after the former deputy prime minister said the party was running out of time to deliver change.

In a high-profile intervention last week, Ms Rayner said Labour could not “go through the motions in the face of decline” and also attacked its immigration reforms as “un-British”.

Asked about Ms Rayner’s suggestion that Labour is running out of time, Mr Streeting told Sky News on Wednesday: “We came in with an enormous challenge and a country that is in desperate need of some hope and optimism.

“And so I don’t think Angela Rayner is saying anything that people around the Cabinet table, including the Prime Minister, aren’t feeling.”

Pressed on whether he thought the criticism sounded like a leadership pitch, he said: “I’ve been victim of this myself.

“We can’t have a culture in politics – certainly the Prime Minister does not support a culture – where people can’t float ideas, can’t influence the battle of ideas and take part in it. That’s what we want.

“So, I don’t think people should go into a defensive crouch when members of our team are saying challenging things.”

Ms Rayner resigned as housing secretary and deputy prime minister last year after a row over her underpayment of stamp duty on a new property.

She has since been widely seen as a possible successor to Sir Keir amid rumblings of a potential leadership challenge following the May local elections as both Labour’s poll ratings and the Prime Minister’s personal approval flounder.

Mr Streeting has also attracted speculation about his ambitions and was forced last year to deny seeking to replace Sir Keir after briefings against him emerged in an apparent ploy to ward off contenders.

Asked about the Health Secretary’s remarks later on Wednesday, the Prime Minister’s political spokesman said he shared “an impatience to deliver the change people voted for”.

“We’re making progress, restoring stability to the economy, cutting NHS waiting lists and next month we’ll begin lifting half-a-million children out of poverty,” the spokesman said.