Wes Streeting has launched an attack on both Sir Keir Starmer and Sir Tony Blair as he set out his key policies in his latest major pitch for the party’s leadership.
In a wide-ranging interview with The Sunday Times, the former health secretary said Labour should consider cutting national insurance and issuing new oil drilling licences for the North Sea, marking a clear break in policy from that of the prime minister.
His position echoes those taken by former prime minister Sir Tony Blair in his scathing 5,600-word essay criticising some of Labour’s policies and accusing the government of lacking a “coherent plan”.
But Mr Streeting also said he would give Sir Tony “a flea in his ear” over some of his suggestions, particularly on artificial intelligence – suggesting the former prime minister had made arguments he would not have done in office.
It comes ahead of a potential leadership contest expected by many in Westminster within the coming months.
Mr Streeting resigned from Sir Keir’s government earlier this month to prepare for a leadership bid after the Makerfield by-election on 18 June, in which Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham hopes to stave off the threat from the right when he stands for Labour.
The former health secretary also reiterated his support for the UK’s eventual return to the EU, but he said the party should stick to its manifesto commitments on Europe in the short term.
Hitting out at Sir Keir, Mr Streeting said: “I don’t think people get him. I don’t think they have any kind of emotional connection to him.”
He added: “I don’t think they understand who he is or why he wants to be prime minister and what his vision for the country is.
“The level of hostility to the prime minister is disproportionate, actually, and unfair in some cases. But I can’t alter the fact that this is how the public feels. It’s not even a problem that can be reduced to a question of style and communication. There is a substance problem with the government.”
Mr Streeting also backed Mr Burnham’s support for more devolution to the regions and greater state intervention in the market as “a good pro-fairness thing to do”.
But he went further, arguing Labour should issue more North Sea oil and gas licences, not because it would reduce bills but because it would provide additional tax revenue.
He said: “We do have to take climate change globally much more seriously and go aggressively towards more renewable energy.
“But there’s sometimes a danger of Britain wanting to lead the world. We cut off our own nose to spite our face without contributing to the greater whole.”
He also suggested he would be open to reversing the increase in employers’ national insurance contributions introduced by Rachel Reeves in her first Budget in order to boost employment, particularly among young people.
Mr Streeting said: “I think we should be thinking actively about how to incentivise, whether that’s through targeted reduction in employers’ national insurance or other kinds of recruitment and retention incentives.”
But Cabinet minister Pat McFadden hit back at the suggestion, telling Sky News there would be “consequences” for such a decision.
“If you want to pull one lever in the tax basket, as it were, there will be consequences”, he said. “And the difficult job of a chancellor is to net all these things off, not only against the consequences of the individual measure, but also all the public expenditure requirements that our government faces every day, be that defence, the NHS, or anything else.”
Hitting out at some of Sir Tony’s ideas, particularly on artificial intelligence, Mr Streeting said: “Blair’s done himself a disservice proposing a prescription that was absent of any values.
“I feel the Tony Blair of 1997, or the Tony Blair of 2007 for that matter, would have been making an argument that said, okay, big revolution coming, how do we apply traditional values in a modern setting?”
Sir Tony himself has defended his essay against criticism from figures within Labour such as Mr Burnham, who argued he had paid too little attention to inequality.
Writing in The Observer, he said Labour should be “cautious about treating populism as a consequence simply of economics” with Brexit and Donald Trump showing “cultural questions also matter”.
He added: “Too often progressive positions on these issues seem to have been driven by noisy pressure groups, not common sense.”
Building on his earlier policy prescriptions, Sir Tony suggested the public would support a “rethinking of healthcare”, more flexible labour regulations, and cuts to welfare to pay for increased defence spending.
It comes after The Times reported that Sir Tony privately told Sir Keir to fight on as prime minister in the weeks before publicly accusing him of having “no coherent plan” to run the country.
In a private call between the two men in the wake of Labour’s disastrous performance at the local elections, the former prime minister reportedly told Sir Keir he should try to remain in office.
