Wes Streeting is "pretty frustrated, tbh"
The Politics Show
The New Statesman
4.2 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 11 December 2025
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Wes Streeting denied plotting to oust Keir Starmer.
Ailbhe Rea met the Health Secretary to learn what he's really thinking.
***
Ailbhe writes:
Labour is in danger of presenting itself as the “maintenance department for the country”, he says. “The problem with that kind of practical, technocratic approach is that if someone else comes along and says, ‘Well, I’ve got a maintenance company too, and mine’s cheaper,’ why wouldn’t people go, ‘OK, well, we’ll give that maintenance team a try’?” He doesn’t name Starmer, but the critique of the Prime Minister’s “practical, technocratic” leadership is clear.
Streeting has denied plotting against the Labour leader. But when we speak, he strikes me as someone planning for what may lie ahead. I meet a cabinet minister ranging beyond his brief, thinking seriously about what his party needs to do to win the next election – and beginning to outline an alternative to that “maintenance department” approach.
***
Ailbhe Rea joins Anoosh Chakelian on Daily Politics from the New Statesman to discuss her interview with Wes Streeting, including the behind-the-scenes parts she couldn't reveal in her article.
📚 READ
Wes Streeting: "I'm pretty frustrated, to be honest"
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-politics/2025/12/wes-streeting-im-pretty-frustrated
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The New Statesman. |
| 0:05.0 | A few weeks ago, West Streeting was accused of plotting to overthrow the Prime Minister. |
| 0:10.0 | He called the briefings an attempted drive-by, accusing number 10 of a toxic culture. |
| 0:15.0 | But it seems he dodged the bullet and is still considered a front-runner in what feels like an inevitable labour leadership contest. |
| 0:21.4 | I'm Anusha Kellyan and this is Daily Politics from the New Statesman. |
| 0:25.3 | I'm joined by our political editor Alva Ray. Hi Alva. |
| 0:27.9 | Hello. |
| 0:28.5 | You had a chance recently to sit down with West Streeting this week over grilled chicken to give him a grilling himself. |
| 0:36.3 | Oh yeah. Oh, nice. |
| 0:39.2 | Thank you very much. |
| 0:45.4 | Tell us a bit about why you wanted to interview him. He's the man of the moment, isn't he? |
| 0:49.9 | Along with Angela Rainer, of all the people that you can think of in politics, really, and I guess Kirstarmer, of all the people that you can think of who you would actually want to sit down |
| 0:55.1 | with and hear from work out what they're really thinking. He's sort of one of the main people |
| 0:59.3 | mainly because of what you just said about that attempted drive by a month ago when he was |
| 1:06.2 | accused of plotting a leadership coup. Everyone's acting like that never happened. |
| 1:12.2 | But I just thought checking in with him, how he's feeling about where Labour is right now, about Kierstarmar. |
| 1:19.7 | His thoughts going into 2026, I thought he'd be an interesting person and he delivered. |
| 1:24.9 | It is a really interesting interview. |
| 1:26.3 | And it is quite interesting when you arrive at the cafe, which is in his constituency in Ilford North. He suddenly stops talking to his advisor the moment. You walk into the cafe early. He probably wasn't expecting me. And I actually wasn't going to put that in. And then Tom was like, oh, no, no, you should begin on that. So there's a version of that, there's a version of this interview that begins on the attempt to drive by with no mention of it. |
| 1:50.4 | But yeah, it was just funny. |
| 1:52.8 | It was funny. |
| 1:54.0 | I had a real sense of seeing him outside of his, I mean, in a way I was seeing him in his natural habitat. |
... |
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