Streeting has exposed Starmer's weakness, writes James Hanson

Wes Streeting, just as it appeared he may have been bottling it, has sensationally quit government. He becomes the most senior minister to publicly lose faith in Sir Keir Starmer, and is widely expected to launch a leadership challenge of his own. A man long known for his ambition has finally put his cards on the table.

If Wes Streeting is ever to become Prime Minister, this is his moment - even if many of his Labour colleagues remain deeply suspicious about both his ideological leanings and his alleged disloyalty.

But what the Health Secretary's departure really reveals is just how impotent Sir Keir Starmer has become. For more than 24 hours, the media was full of reports that Streeting was about to resign and launch a challenge.

Even prior to their notably brief face-to-face yesterday morning, the PM will have been aware that Streeting had failed to publicly back him ever since Labour leadership speculation became a frenzy at the start of the week.

That no one in Downing Street felt they had the power to demand a statement of support from their Health Secretary, or to sack him if no such loyalty was forthcoming, reveals the weakness of Starmer’s position.

It’s true that Wednesday essentially became an unofficial truce in the phoney war now engulfing the Labour Party. An understandable desire not to upstage King Charles during the state opening of parliament may have prevented Starmer from being bolder. But nothing stopped him from publicly giving Streeting his marching orders this morning.

If anything, the PM may have won sympathy among the soft left of the party, who will be the decisive voting bloc in any forthcoming leadership contest. His inability to do so underlines why Starmer’s days in Downing Street will shortly be at an end. He is in office but no longer in power.

And it’s not as if Starmer is usually reluctant to brutally dispatch members of his top team. The political body count of his less than two years of office is extraordinarily high by historical standards. This is a PM who is happy to throw even his closest allies under the bus to save his own skin. The fact he didn’t feel capable of sacking Streeting in the same way, despite his flagrant disloyalty, is the surest sight yet that his position has become untenable.

What happens next will be fascinating. Starmer may well fight on. If Streeting does have the numbers to force a leadership challenge, then the PM will back himself to beat him among a left-leaning membership instinctively wary of Streeting’s Blairite pretensions.

Then again, if the Health Secretary's resignation triggers a fresh batch of Labour MPs to call for a change in Number 10, then events may quickly overtake him. It all makes great copy for political journalists, but it’s a terrible look for the country. Starmer promised an end to Tory psychodrama. All he has given us is Labour’s version instead.

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