Health Secretary Wes Streeting compared the Caerphilly by-election result to the loss of Hartlepool in 2021, which prompted Keir Starmer to consider his future as party leader
Wes Streeting has said Labour must act urgently to counter a “sense of despair” in Britain as he compared a by-election defeat to Keir Starmer’s lowest moment in opposition.
The Health Secretary delivered the grim diagnosis after Labour lost a critical Senedd contest in Caerphilly, in the party’s Welsh heartlands.
He said Labour must treat Friday’s result as a Hartlepool moment, referring to the loss of a by-election in 2021 which prompted Mr Starmer to consider his future as party leader.
But Mr Streeting insisted his comments were not an attack on the PM, and said he backed him to turn around the party’s fortunes.
He told Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips on Sky News: “There is a deep disillusionment in this country at the moment and, I’d say, a growing sense of despair about whether anyone is capable of turning this country around.
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“Now, I am an optimist in politics. I think there are green shoots of recovery in the NHS, in the economy, in our public services, but there is also so much more to do, and we’ve got to attack those challenges with the level of energy and focus that the scale of the challenge demands.”
Labour slumped to third place with just 11% of the vote in Caerphilly on Friday, a town that has backed the party for more than 100 years.
Mr Streeting compared this to Labour’s devastating defeat by the Tories in a by-election in Hartlepool in 2021. Mr Starmer considered resigning at the time, according to his biographer Tom Baldwin.
Describing the Caerphilly result, Mr Streeting said: “Labour’s response to that, the government’s response to that, has got to be similar to the response that we saw from Keir Starmer when Labour lost the Hartlepool by-election.
“That was a real shock to Labour’s core. This was a solid Labour town, just like Caerphilly and what Keir did was take the result on the chin and also took it to heart and changed the Labour Party with a pace and scale of ambition.
“That meant we were able to win a general election that no one thought we could win. We’ve got to do the same now in government.
“Take that result in Caerphilly on the chin, take it to heart and show the same level of ambition and drive and the scale of change within government that the public are crying out for.
“Because we need reform of the state, reform of our public services, reform of the economy, and only by doing those things and having people feel change are we going to rebuild trust in politics.”