Minister Wes Streeting piles fresh pressure on Keir Starmer saying Brits are ‘disillusioned’ and ‘despair’ of ANYONE being able to sort the country out

Minister Wes Streeting piled pressure on Sir Keir Starmer today with a warning that Brits are disillusioned’ and ‘despair’ of anyone being able to sort the country out.

The Health Secretary insisted he was trying to help after he compared Labour’s disastrous showing in the Caerphilly by-election to the lowest point of Sir Keir’s time as party leader.

Mr Streeting used a newspaper interview today to say that coming a distant third in the Senedd vote – in an area controlled by Labour for 100 years, was like its defeat in Hartlepool in 2021.

And appearing later on Sky News’ Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips he admitted that since entering government the party had not done enough to show it could make the country better.

Labour had to go into the next election with people feeling that change has been delivered, he said.

It came after a torrid week for the PM, with inflation remaining unchanged and fresh immigration scandals including the escape of sex attacker migrant Hadush Kebatu.

Labour was humiliated in Caephilly on Thursday as Plaid Cymru took the Senedd seat, with Reform a close second.

And yesterday Lucy Powell – sacked earlier this year from the Cabinet, won the race to become Sir Keir’s party deputy on the back of a campaign that criticised him for not being left-wing enough.

Health Secretary Mr Streeting told Sky News’ Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips: ‘There is a deep disillusionment in this country at the moment and, I’d say, growing sense of despair about whether anyone is capable of turning this country around.

It came after a torrid week for the PM, with inflation remaining unchanged and fresh immigration scandals including the escape of sex attacker migrant Hadush Kebatu.

Yesterday Lucy Powell, sacked earlier this year from the Cabinet, won the race to become Sir Keir’s party deputy after a campaign that criticised him for not being left-wing enough

‘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.’     

He insisted that Sir Keir Starmer did understand the scale of the challenge facing the Government.

‘Part of the frustration, I think, lots of us feel is that there are lots of good things this Labour Government has done in our first 15 months. I think people are not yet feeling the change.

‘If I have one criticism of us collectively as a team, we are not telling a compelling enough story about who we are, who we’re for and what it is we are driving to do.’