Health Secretary Wes Streeting has said he knows voters are ‘shouting at the telly’ to tell Labour they are not feeling the change that was promised at the election
The Health Secretary has said he knows voters are “shouting at the telly” to tell Labour they are not feeling the change that was promised at the election.
After a miserable set of local elections results last week, Wes Streeting said he knows people are “hungry for change” but told them: “So are we, and it is frustrating.” He asked families to “give us a chance to deliver the change that we promised”.
The Cabinet minister admitted either Nigel Farage’s Reform UK or the Tories could be Labour’s “main challengers” at the next general election. And he even urged for Reform to get more “airtime” so their policies could be scrutinised.
READ MORE: What next for Labour after local elections? Warnings for Keir Starmer from his own party
Mr Streeting said: “For hundreds of thousands of people who have been seen faster and come off the waiting list, great news. If you’re one of seven million cases still on there, this is the point at which you start shouting at the telly, saying: ‘Hang on a minute, you’re saying the NHS is improving. I’m still waiting.’ Now both those things are true. The NHS is improving, but people are still waiting.”
He said the same was true for people who had seen their wages rise, but that had not “washed away the cost of living crisis”. “So I think people are impatient for change, hungry for change, and so are we and it is frustrating,” he said.
Reform swept to victory in local elections across England last week, including scraping through a win in the Runcorn and Helsby by-election by six votes. Speaking to Sky News’ Trevor Phillips, Mr Streeting said: “I think Reform is definitely a real threat and one that we take seriously.
“I think there’s clearly, on the right of British politics, a realignment taking place. It’s not yet clear whether at the next general election it will be Reform or the Conservatives that are Labour’s main challengers, but we’ve got to take that threat seriously. In that spirit, I think Reform does deserve more airtime and scrutiny of their policies.”
It comes as Keir Starmer faces a backlash from some within his own party over Labour’s disappointing local elections results, which came less than a year after their landslide general election victory. Writing in the Sunday Mirror, South Shields MP Emma Lewell said the Government needs a “change of plan” more than a “Plan For Change”.
She took aim at Labour’s refusal to pay compensation to WASPI women and cuts to Personal Independence Payments. The PM has also come under fire over the early decision to cut winter fuel payments for millions of pensioners – a choice that is still having widespread repercussions.
While Reform UK won hundreds of councillor seats last week, party chair Zia Yusuf suggested they don’t have fully-fledged plans yet when asked if they had made promises they couldn’t keep. In an interview with BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg, he snapped that the party had “literally” been working on it but the election “was a couple of days ago”.
He was unable to say how much money the party was going to save for local government, despite big promises, as it said the party still needs to do the analysis. It comes after Dame Andrea Jenkyns, the new Greater Lincolnshire mayor for Reform, claimed she would save money removing council diversity officers before it emerged that the county council reportedly doesn’t employ any.
Mr Yusuf was also grilled on Reform’s commitment to reject migrants going to areas it now controls, despite local councils not having the power to do so as contracts are drawn up between the Home Office and accommodation providers. He said the party would use “every instrument of power available”, adding: “There are judicial reviews, there are injunctions, there’s a lot of different things around planning, around budget allocation.”
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch said she was not “complacent” after Reform had a “good night” and the Conservatives had a “bad night”. But she said she thought Reform UK’s success in the local elections has come about because “protest is in the air”.
Sir Ed Davey said the Liberal Democrats were “on track” to overtake the Tories at the next general election, saying they were the only party that “stood up” to Reform UK.
The party leader said: “I think Labour and the Conservatives made a mistake with Reform. The Conservatives have been copying Reform policies, Labour is sounding more and more like Reform. I think the way you defeat Nigel Farage is by calling him out.”
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