Welcome to Hard Talk on the BBC World Service with me, Stephen Sacker. My guest today is seen as one of the rising stars in the UK's opposition Labour Party. If a powerful backstory is a key driver of political success, then West Streeting could be unstoppable. His parents were teenagers when he was born. He was raised in poverty by his

mum, who sometimes struggled to put food on the table. But he excelled at school and against all odds

made it to Cambridge University. There he came out as gay and began his commitment to political

activism. In 2015, he entered Parliament as a Labour MP,

and by 2021 he was a shadow minister. But then he was diagnosed with kidney cancer and had to take

a career break for surgery. Now, he's fully recovered, and as Labor Shadow Health Secretary

at the forefront of a key political battleground, namely how to

save the National Health Service from a deepening crisis involving funding, staffing levels and

patient dissatisfaction. In England, nurses are going on strike for the first time in a century,

but the sense of crisis isn't limited to the

health service. Strikes are spreading across vital services from rail to mail. Workers complain

their wages are falling far behind inflation in what's becoming the worst cost of living squeeze

in 40 years. The Conservative government, now on its third leader this year,

has slumped in the polls, but would Labor do any better? Well, West Streeting joins me now.

Welcome to Hard Talk. Thanks for having me. As you are well aware, strikes are spreading across

vital economic sectors in the UK. There is a real cost of living

squeeze on workers across the country. In the context of these strikes, whose side are you on?

Fundamentally on the people who are being affected by strike action and the people who felt

forced into strike action because they don't have a

government that's willing to negotiate and to give people a sense of hope that things are going

to get better than they are today. And you're right to say that these strikes are widespread.

But even in that context, the strikes we're seeing within the National Health Service are in

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