Overview
- Multiple reports say several cabinet ministers want Wes Streeting removed for alleged disloyalty and repeated breaches of collective responsibility, with one urging Keir Starmer to emulate Kemi Badenoch’s swift sacking of Robert Jenrick.
- A Downing Street source describes Streeting as a key team player doing a great job, while his spokesperson calls the anti-Streeting briefings “incredibly stupid” and highlights a major fall in NHS waiting lists and faster ambulance response times.
- At a political cabinet meeting, Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander urged colleagues to form a “praetorian guard” around the prime minister, and attendees described Starmer’s closing remarks as unusually emotional and forthright.
- Briefing wars intensify as ministers decry policy U-turns and poor polling; Streeting has pressed for government to “get it right first time” and floated a social media ban for under‑16s, positions some colleagues see as straying beyond the agreed line.
- The Times reports No 10 aide Darren Jones is accused by insiders of driving anti‑Streeting briefings, which his allies deny, while Lord Blunkett calls sacking Streeting “ludicrous” and Starmer seeks to refocus with a cost‑of‑living tour.