← Political Thinking with Nick Robinson
Political Thinking with Nick Robinson
'What the hell are we doing?' Wes Streeting on his promise to young people, resigning from government, and wanting to be PM
00:52:56
Labour leadership contender and former health secretary Wes Streeting.
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- [00:00]
Wes Streeting
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- [01:09]
Nick Robinson
Hello and welcome to Political Thinking. We're in the fight of our lives, a fight against nationalism, a fight we risk losing. So said my guest on Political Thinking this week, Wes Streeting, explaining why he'd resigned from the Cabinet from his job as Health Secretary and now wants to challenge Keir Starmer, Andy Burnham and anybody else who wants to be the next Labour leader to a contest to be our next prime minister. The man who describes himself as this kid from a council estate in Stepney in East London made a call to arms in his resignation speech in the House of Commons, asking the country to fight for a better future for the young in particular, and telling his party they needed to recognize the country faces an emergency and urgency is now required. We're treating welcome back to Political Thinking.
- [02:09]
Wes Streeting
Thank you for having me.
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Nick Robinson
It sounded to me, listening and watching to your resignation speech, as if you wanted to say to your party, to the country, the this isn't just a battle for whose bomb is on the back seat of a ministerial car or the prime ministerial car. This is a battle for Britain. Is that right?
- [02:32]
Wes Streeting
That's absolutely right. I feel that in Britain at the moment there's a sense of pessimism in the air, a fear that things won't get better, that if left unchecked and unanswered, risks sliding into fatalism, a conviction that things can't get better. And that's a dangerous place for a country to be because when people believe that change isn't possible, they stop demanding it. And when they stop demanding it, decline does become inevitable. And we sit at the moment in a turbulent and dangerous world where it's not yet clear whether democracy or tyranny will triumph in the 21st century. So we've got this big global battle and instability, which is also a clash of ideas and a set of values. And we're seeing that play out domestically too. The crisis in Iran, for example, you know, the long tail economic consequences of that are going to be painful for our country. They have weathered so many crises before over now 20 years, from the financial crash through to the pandemic, the wars in Iran and Ukraine. We need to summon blitz spirit in this country and people will respond, but they have to believe it's in pursuit of something bigger and better.
- [03:56]
Nick Robinson
Blitz spirit. Democracy versus tyranny. Are you consciously saying to the country this is a 1930s moment?
- [04:06]
Wes Streeting
I certainly feel that there are dark forces of nationalism that are at play that we haven't seen in this country for decades. We see that with the rise in racism, hatred directed against not just black and Asian people, but Muslims and Jews on the streets of our towns and cities. There is definitely something in the air that I think is reminiscent of those times. I also think that the thing that has been fundamentally broken in this country is, is a social contract that says the next generation will do better than the last. And for throughout our modern history, that has been true until now, and young people can feel it. And in my resignation speech in the House of Commons, I cited an opinion poll that showed around half of young people saying that they wouldn't be prepared to fight for this country if the moment required it. Now, I don't actually believe the findings of that poll. Actually, I think young people have shown that they would respond when the cause is just and the need is there, and they will do that. We saw that during the pandemic when young people did make big sacrifices as the group of people least at risk of the virus to protect older generations. But what have we given them in return? We've shortchanged them on their educational recovery, our predecessors did. We've layered them up with debt. They struggle to get on the housing ladder. The cost of living is high. We're not addressing the technological unemployment we're beginning to see. So I just think if this country and if our politics can't leave Britain better for the next generation, then what the hell are we doing? And that is that for me. You know, as you know, Nick, my driving mission in politics has always been to make sure that more kids from working class backgrounds like mine have the same choices and chances and security and opportunity as those most privileged backgrounds.
- [06:09]
Nick Robinson
I want to talk about that background. I want to talk about what the offer of Wes treating would be. But before we do battle for Britain, you say it is. You talk about the Blitz spirit. In your common speech, you use the phrase Gathering Storm, the title of Winston Churchill's history of the events leading up to. Up to World War II. Is this deliberate? I mean, Winston Churchill warned people that they should listen to him and his warnings about what lay ahead. He warned of the weakness of the virtuous, enabling the malice of the wicked. In that book, the Gathering Storm, is that what you think is a danger now?
- [06:50]
Wes Streeting
Funny enough, I didn't think. I didn't have Churchill in mind. I did have the most recent set of election results in this country, which are unprecedented on two levels. Unprecedented for the Labour Party in terms of the extent of the defeat we suffered, but also unprecedented for the uk, because for the first time in the history of this country, nationalists are in power in every corner of the United Kingdom. And in the case of Scottish nationalism, Welsh nationalism, they would break our country apart. So there's an existential threat to the uk, but in Nigel Farage and reform, you have an English nationalism now, which I think is an affront to the values that have made this country great, especially in the greatest institution this country built, the National Health Service, which I've been proud to lead.
- [07:38]
Nick Robinson
There's another phrase that Churchill used in the Gathering Storm. He warned that pursuing what he called a safe middle course can lead directly to disaster. Is that what West Treating is saying, if we carry on as the Labour Party, as we are, disaster looms?
- [07:58]
Wes Streeting
Yes. I mean, I think what we've achieved in government in the last couple of years, I could list, and I could list those things proudly. The tragedy is the country would be able to list our mistakes more easily than our achievements. But ultimately, are we making big enough choices? Are we being bold enough on the things that need to change to create a stronger country at home and a more resilient country abroad? No, I don't think we are.
- [08:33]
Nick Robinson
Now, you mentioned your family and your upbringing. You've talked to me before on political thinking about the Wes dad test. The fact that your dad, unlike your mum, I might say, was a lifelong Tory who a pub landlord, a cabbie, a car salesman who only voted Labour when streeting was on the ballot paper. You've talked about your granddad, Bill, who you say was your closest friend and biggest influence, also a lifelong Tory, a Royal Naval veteran, is what's got wrong, that the Labour Party isn't appealing to people like them.
- [09:09]
Wes Streeting
If only that were. If only it were that simple, because that's been Labour's traditional challenge, is we've tended when we've been in opposition to consolidate our base, but struggle to reach to those voters in the centre ground, the floating voters who decide who wins elections. The tragedy of Labour's position today is that not only would we lose those centreground voters who are still up for grabs, by the way, there are a lot of middle of the road, one nation Tory types who feel abandoned by Kemi Badenoch and affronted by Farage, who feel politically homeless. But we have also seen that face set against this challenge of Farage and reform and the kind of division that they represent, the threat to the nhs, all of the things that motivate us as progressives in politics. When crunch has come to the crunch, too many of our own progressive supporters have not seen Labour as the route to stop reform. So in Gorton and Denton, they voted Green. In the Caerphilly by election. For the Welsh Senate, they voted for Plaid Cymru. So Labour faces a fight on two fronts. We're losing the traditional floating voter that we need in order to win elections where we tend to have to kind of reach out into the centre ground, but we're also losing our progressive base. And that's because we lack definition. People don't know what we stand for. And, you know, as I said to the Prime Minister, you know my letter and privately, this is. This is a government that lacks definition but also direction and vision. And when people don't know who you are and what you stand for, they don't vote for you. And so the simple question is missing on so many fronts, both the big
- [10:59]
Nick Robinson
question, but also the when you resigned, why didn't you just challenge him? I mean, you talk of being a Labour leadership candidate, you could have triggered a contest. And people say he's not done it because he hasn't got the votes, hasn't got the support.
- [11:11]
Wes Streeting
Well, actually, I got wind. When did I resign? It was last week. So I got wind a couple of days before that Andy Burnham had found a seat. And talking to my colleagues in the parliamentary party in particular, it was clear that if we had been plunged straight into a leadership contest by me, or for that matter, anyone else, I think it would have been seen as a deliberate attempt to get ahead of Andy Burnham's potential return. And if there's one thing that we need to do coming out of a change in leadership, it is to bring the tribes of the Labour Party together to unite around one leader, as one team, drawing on Labour's different political traditions to unite progressives and beat reform and
- [12:00]
Nick Robinson
honestly clear you're saying you could have done it.
- [12:02]
Wes Streeting
I could have been in a leadership contest now and I think I would have been accused of foul play by trying to rule out someone who is objectively popular. And that's why I think he will win the Makerfield by election.
- [12:14]
Nick Robinson
Now, in that resignation letter you mentioned, you said we need vision, we have a vacuum. Where we need direction, we have drift. I thought, I think probably lots of political observers thought when he stands up and gives his resignation speech, Wes Streeting will spell out why he had to resign, why Keir Starmer frustrated him, didn't go along with the things he wanted to do. You didn't give a single example. Is that because you haven't got any examples or are you keeping quiet because you don't want to be accused of rocking the boat even further?
- [12:49]
Wes Streeting
I think it's clear the Prime Minister isn't going to lead us into the next general election. I think we're much better off focusing on the future rather than relitigating the past. There have definitely been frustrations, there have been frustrations on individual policy areas.
- [13:05]
Nick Robinson
Can you give us an example?
- [13:06]
Wes Streeting
Well, let's take my old brief of health and social care. While there are some important things we've done on social care in the last couple of years, both in terms of the investment, but also the expansion of the Carers Allowance and the disabled facilities grant increases, that fell well short of my ambitions as the Secretary of State for Social Care and the Shadow Secretary of State. So in the run up to the general election, you know, I was clear that I wanted us to legislate for a national care service, to start that process in this Parliament. I thought it was a big endeavour. I didn't think we could do everything all at once. But that was the ambition that I, that I set out.
- [13:44]
Nick Robinson
A phrase, incidentally, first used by a
- [13:47]
Wes Streeting
former Andy Burnham, my Labour predecessor.
- [13:50]
Nick Robinson
Yeah, I reported on, on the news in 2000.
- [13:53]
Wes Streeting
That's how long this has been kicking around. And we, before the general election I said I wanted to go further on social care. I wanted to go after the private equity owned care homes who were leeching money that's desperately needed from the social care sector. I wanted that in a manifesto that was blocked. And then I basically thought, okay, if we're not careful, we're going to be in the same position as the governments of Gordon Brown, David Cameron and all of the others who came along who said they wanted to tackle social care. But the politics moved against them and so I fought for what we now have, which is the Casey Commission. And I knew that in order to shift the politics on social care and to break through on what I think is one of the big generational challenges facing this country, that I needed to create a vehicle to do that and get one of Whitehall's best known doers. Because even the might of number 10 in the treasury would struggle to take on the formidable Louise Casey.
- [14:55]
Nick Robinson
I hear you say that you want to talk about the future and we will, because you've set out an interesting agenda in that resignation speech. But you did say, just a few days ago, we had, you said, talking for the Labour Party, a dishonest leadership contest followed by an over cautiousness in opposition. Dishonest? What way?
- [15:16]
Wes Streeting
Well, I mean, look, when those 10 pledges dropped through my letterbox as a Labour Party member, I took one look at them and thought, these ain't gonna happen. And I understand what Keir Starm was trying to do, meet the Labour membership where they were, post Corbyn and lead them on a journey back to government. And he succeeded in that and that was a considerable achievement. So I don't want to sound too critical, but I have a different approach. My. My. Every election in Ilford North, I've put on my leaflets and in my report, my newsletters in between. You may not always agree with me, but you'll always know where I stand. And I think that's important because change begins with an argument and you have to set out your stall and you have to make a case to people about what, what's wrong and what you want to do about it.
- [16:01]
Nick Robinson
So Keir Starmer just wasn't open at that stage with what was necessary. And he wasn't open during the general election either, was he, about increasing tax, for example, and the inevitability of that?
- [16:11]
Wes Streeting
Well, we were definitely, I think we were definitely over cautious in opposition. And look, there's a. There's been this and this. I don't want to put this all on Kieran and the team in opposition, because there has been this, I think, relatively modern development in politics where the moment someone suggests the German of an idea, your opponents seize it, find the most expensive version of it and then slap it on a spreadsheet of doom and say, look at all of Labour's or the Tories or anyone else's uncosted spending commitments and it kills the debate about ideas, it stops people flying kites. And that was suffocating in opposition. It meant we didn't have the quality of debate we needed in order to have A program for government that was able to hit the ground running consistently across the board when we came in and that's carried into government. If I think about, you know, Josh McAllister, brand new MP for Whitehaven and Workington did well known for his work on children's social care before becoming an mp. He puts forward a private member's bill floating, banning mobile phones in schools, rather than being told, well, that's, that's good. That is the zeitgeist of every parent's WhatsApp group. This is the, the parents anxiety, the teacher's anxiety, young people's anxiety. Let's fly a kite on it, see how it goes. Well done for picking a salient issue. He was scolded for it and told that, you know, we don't, we don't want, we don't want, you know, these, these sorts of ideas popping up. That's, that's not the line, that's not the policy.
- [17:51]
Nick Robinson
I can hear the Prime Minister, if he was here, saying, look, politics isn't about clever sound bites, speeches and positioning and politics.
- [17:58]
Wes Streeting
Politics is about good ideas. And, well, he would say it's about getting things done.
- [18:03]
Nick Robinson
And he is the man who this week has been able to say, look at all the things we've done. We've got Great British Railways, a new nationalized railway producing its first train. We've got measures to deal with the cost of living. What Wes Streeting wants is to give talks, give speeches.
- [18:21]
Wes Streeting
No, I don't agree with that and my record certainly says something else. We'll come on to that, but I'm sure. But look, you can't just be at a time when this country is already feeling the impact of big global trends, the biggest technological industrial revolution in the history of the world, the climate change, global instability, economic shockwaves. You can't just be the maintenance department of the country just going around kind of fixing things here and there and tinkering here and there. You have to set out, like, what it is you're doing, why you're doing it, because otherwise those, those significant achievements you've just mentioned, Nick, they disappear in a, in a shopping list that no one can remember. Because you lack a story about who you are, what you're, what you're for, and how those things ladder up to something bigger that give people hope and confidence that the country is moving in the right direction.
- [19:19]
Nick Robinson
And, yeah, I had a guest on this political thinking podcast who said to me, one of the things that makes the job of being Cabinet a hell of a lot Easier is a Prime Minister who's about the long term. He rejects government by gimmick, who rejects short term sticking plasters. That was you. You said that to me. No, we just kind of spinning at the time. Is that what you had to say or did something change between the last time we had a conversation like this less than two years ago and now?
- [19:50]
Wes Streeting
Well, I was certainly enthused by this idea of like mission driven government where you accept that there are big challenges facing the country. You can't tackle them without government. Government can't do it alone. Where are they? The architecture for it was abandoned. We don't talk about them anymore. Our politics and government has gotten smaller, not bigger. And then as for decision making, and I think this is a common complaint across the government, long term, thinking about the long term should not mean waiting long term for decisions to be made and for direction to be given. And sometimes the Prime Minister complains that we're not changing the country fast enough. But he doesn't drive. And there's one thing that I learned as the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, leading the largest public service in the world, is that every day you have to fight, every. Every day you have to drive. And the progress that we've made on waiting lists, on ambulance response times, on A and E performance, that didn't happen by accident and it didn't happen just because more money went in. It happened because investment was matched with modernization and a sharp focus on delivery. And we'd set out to the whole system one and a half million people, what we were driving at, where we were going, what the direction was, and the government as a whole lacks that. And when you find.
- [21:14]
Nick Robinson
Is that what you told him?
- [21:15]
Wes Streeting
Yeah.
- [21:15]
Nick Robinson
I mean, when you met Keir Starmer.
- [21:16]
Wes Streeting
Yeah. I'm not going to give chapter and verse on.
- [21:19]
Nick Robinson
And you what? How long were you in the room? Because you're only in the building 16 minutes. How long were you in the room?
- [21:23]
Wes Streeting
Yeah, I know. It was timed. It felt like longer. I'm not going to. I think it would be disrespectful to someone like this. I'll say what you told him. Yeah. And that is part of my frustration. I was very honest with the Prime Minister privately about where I thought the government was going wrong, as have other cabinet colleagues been, as have other ministers been, and as have a quarter of our parliamentary party who signed a public statement. You know, we, we.
- [21:46]
Nick Robinson
And did you tell him, I'm going to challenge you?
- [21:48]
Wes Streeting
Yes. And I.
- [21:51]
Nick Robinson
And did he say, there's no Need. I'll change.
- [21:55]
Wes Streeting
I don't want to get into the. What he said and what I said because I don't think that's fair or respectful and. But you know what? If, honestly, Nick, if I felt that the Prime Minister was going to change and things would be different, then I would have, I would have, I would have been happy, more than happy, to stay doing the job that I loved because I'm not, you know, I'm not going to pretend that the last week has been easy or the leaving a job that I loved with all my heart has not been an emotional wrench because I loved being the Health Secretary of this country. I wanted to outperform Jeremy Hunt as the longest serving Health Secretary. I knew what I wanted to do and I knew what I wanted to do in this term. I had an eye on what we would do in our second term if we were privileged enough to be there and, and leaving that, you know what some of your colleagues find has been
- [22:53]
Nick Robinson
shouting at the radio, on the TV now, why did you come off it? They're saying he's wanted to be Prime Minister pretty much since he was in his pram. I mean, a few years back, the comedian Matt Ford produced a video asking new politicians who's going to be prime minister in 10 years. And all your friends in the Labour Party, all of them, despite the fact, I'm sure they didn't think it, said Jeremy Corbyn, who was the leader of the Labour Party at the moment, who was the one person who said, probably me.
- [23:24]
Wes Streeting
Yeah, that's because I've an occasional tendency to be a comedian and that's really annoying in moments like this.
- [23:33]
Nick Robinson
But you have wanted your whole life to be Prime Minister.
- [23:36]
Wes Streeting
I don't think there's anything wrong in ambition. I don't mind saying, though, I, you know, and I've said this to Kir before, the more you see the job up close, there's, there's a, there is a, there is a, there is a kind of, an inverse kind of relationship where the close. The more you see the job, the more you think actually that is, that's a hard job. So I'm under no illusion about what it is that I'm asking to do,
- [24:07]
Nick Robinson
but his ambition matched by the qualities, the experience to do it. Because if my dad, not your dad, was still alive, he would be saying to me, he's never had a real job. I mean, this guy's been a politician all his life. He was a student politician, then he was a politician arguing for gay rights then he was a counsellor, then he became a Labour mp. He's barely been in the Cabinet, certainly not done it for two years. And now he wants to be Prime Minister. Why does he wait a bit till he's actually run something? Andy Burnham's run Manchester, Keir Starmer's run the Labour Party and the country. You've not run anything.
- [24:42]
Wes Streeting
That critique really grinds my gears for a number of reasons. Firstly, I was brought up to earn my own way and I have worked since I was 16. I paid my own way through my A levels, I paid my way through university. You're right, I got cut my teeth with political experience in the National Union of Students and in local government. But I was also running a small charity. I'm one of the youngest chief execs in the country. At the time, I was a director of a larger charity. So I. And I don't think I know there are some people who sneer at charities in the voluntary sector. And again, you know, I really resent that because I think they do an absolutely amazing job and they are organizations like any other. Like, when I was running a small charity, I had at times, you know, concerns about running the payroll and my cash flow in a way that a small business owner would. You know, when I was, you know, in my late 20s, I was restructuring an organization that, you know, involved telling a lot of people quite a bit older than me that sadly, I'd be making them redundant. Those are hard things to do. And those. Those give you valuable experiences for life as well as for government. And you're right, I have run the largest public service in the world for the best part of two years.
- [26:10]
Nick Robinson
What do you say? The head of the NHS runs the NHS in England. Not the Health Secretary.
- [26:15]
Wes Streeting
No, but I've led and I've led from the front, and every day I've gone into the Department of Health and Social Care, I've gone in with clear direction, vision about where we want to go. And I've been like a gladiator, fighting through the obstacles, the barriers, the culture of no. That you encounter, whether within your department, other parts of government, the NHS itself. And I think those are all valuable experiences that would equip me to do the top job.
- [26:42]
Nick Robinson
Really interesting to hear you say it grinds my gears when people say that.
- [26:47]
Wes Streeting
It was a more polite way of saying, ball's mine. I won't end the sentence.
- [26:50]
Nick Robinson
Well, I think there's another thing that, to use your phrase, grind your gears. People think Burnham's working class, they think Rayner is working class. They think Wes treating's a smart, slick politician, usually in a smart suit. Not today, I notice. Does that annoy you? Because you described yourself in your speech as the boy from the council estate in Sydney. Yeah, I still am in East London.
- [27:17]
Wes Streeting
That will never change. I've never forgotten my roots. I'm proud of my roots. I wish that at times when I was growing up that life wasn't as hard as it was and I don't want it to be that hard for other kids now. And the tragedy in our country today is the kids that I represent in my constituency on the London Essex border, the council flat that I wanted to escape when I was growing up, those kids now aspire to because they're not in a council flat, they're in grotty temporary bed and breakfast accommodation. And the kicker is that we are paying about 3 billion quid a year for the privilege of putting these kids in grotty accommodation that stunts their development, their life chances, their opportunities. And I cannot believe that in the space of 30 years, things have gotten worse, not better.
- [28:06]
Nick Robinson
Talk a little bit about what you might do.
- [28:08]
Wes Streeting
Yeah. As for the whole Polish thing, like, oh, well, you know, I'm not so bothered about it because I was brought up by my granddad to polish my shoes, put on a tie, look the part. My accent probably became a bit more plummy after university. There's knocking around somewhere. There's like a video cassette of our school trip to a place in Stansted, Mount Fitchett called Gorseville. It's like an outdoor, active education centre. And it is really funny because you hear this, like, little Wesley going up. You're a bit more Essex. Well, east London. I mean, I'm now, I've, like lots of eastenders, I've migrated out towards.
- [28:47]
Nick Robinson
Is it true that one of your teachers told you, smarten up, polish up,
- [28:51]
Wes Streeting
you want to get on in life in secondary school.
- [28:52]
Nick Robinson
Don't talk like that, don't look like that.
- [28:54]
Wes Streeting
It was good advice, but it's advice I feel conflicted about because I don't think people should need to change or conform in order to get on. But it was good advice because when you walk through the door of a job interview, people do look you up and down when you speak, people do kind of listen out, especially in your world in the media, my world in politics. So you can't. You can't do right from wrong, can you? You know, Angela Rayner is someone I have like, the most enormous respect for in terms of where she's come from. Where she's got to. The sneering she gets because of the way she speaks and the fact she hasn't gone to university is disgusting. But I get, I get it the other way around. I mean, actually the tragedy is that, you know, all of them went to private school and, you know, they. No one comments on them and it's just sort of acceptable. That's just what they're like, isn't it? But, but we're the ones who get judged. We can't do right from wrong as working class people in politics,
- [29:50]
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- [30:22]
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- [30:27]
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- [30:38]
Nick Robinson
Well, let's talk some more though, about what you want to do for those young people you say have the same background as yours. I called it a call to arms. That speech in the House of Commons. Were you consciously channeling jfk? You're looking puzzled.
- [30:57]
Wes Streeting
Is this the. Yeah, so.
- [30:59]
Nick Robinson
So, yeah, you said something very similar to the famous JFK quote, Arsenal.
- [31:06]
Wes Streeting
Yeah, again, I didn't have jfk.
- [31:08]
Nick Robinson
People can do for the country, ask what we can do for them.
- [31:12]
Wes Streeting
Yeah, so, I mean, actually I didn't, I didn't think so much of that. I. So the benefit of people listening. So. And going back to that poll, that survey, half of young people said in a poll they wouldn't fight for their country. As I said, I think they would. But that's not the question. The question isn't for me, would young people fight for their country? It's when will this country fight for them? Because what we've done, like what we did during COVID for good reasons, I'm not knocking it, but for good reasons, we did something that is so antithetical to human nature. We asked children to make sacrifices for adults. We never do this. There isn't a good parent across the land who wouldn't throw themselves in harm's way to protect their children. Not a single good parent in this country would ever make that, you know, make a different choice. And yet that's what we did as society. We, we constrain their education, their developments, their childhoods in order to protect older people. And the least our predecessors could have done was listen to Sir Kevin Collins, the expert. They got in then they said, look, what do we need to do to recover these kids education and well being? And he told them, and Rishi Sunak said, we haven't got the money for it. And he shortchanged them. And that really, at the time I was in the schools brief and then the child poverty brief in opposition and I just thought this is the problem sometimes when you don't have people in positions of power, who knows what life is like for people at the sharp end. Because as much as I have lots of respect for Rishi on many levels, he does come from a more privileged background. He went to one of the country's top private schools. I don't think he understands or understood what missing out on that education would have meant for kids from my background who missed out on the enrichment, the opportunities, the education that gave me everything that I needed to be the person I am today and to succeed in what I wanted to do. You know, the question, that ladder of opportunity from underneath, they're going to say
- [33:20]
Nick Robinson
he wants a national care service, he wants to do much more for kids whose education was scarred by Covid. Where is the money coming from?
- [33:32]
Wes Streeting
Yeah, and that's a, and that's a fair question. And one of the things that I'm putting out as part of my campaign is a proposal for a wealth tax that works. And what I'm proposing to do is equalize rates of capital gains and income tax. I'm proposing that for a few reasons. Firstly, there's a fundamental issue of fairness and a case I've made for a long time, which is it is just not fair that a cleaner employed, you know, in this country would pay a lower marginal rate of taxation than a landlord whose assets are appreciating in value. And that gap between earned and unearned income has widened. So there's a fairness argument.
- [34:21]
Nick Robinson
Just to be clear, when we're talking about capital gains, we're talking of the tax on people's investments. It could be shares, it could be a second home. It's essentially not the tax on your income, but the tax on how you
- [34:33]
Wes Streeting
see the wealth gap in this country is widened, the opportunity gap in this country is widening. And the gap between earned income and unearned income has also widened. But there's also, I think, a good pro business, pro growth, pro productivity argument in what I'm setting out. Because at the moment, if you are investing your wealth and you're going to get a 10 to 20% return investing in a smaller, less productive business that you can dissolve and walk away a lot better off paying a much lower rate of taxation. You're less likely to be investing in those companies, in those startups, in venture capital that is funding the productive part of the economy, the productive businesses providing the patient capital needed to grow the economy to have more productive business. And so the approach that I'm setting out and the kite that I'm flying in this leadership contest will be to equalize those rates with allowances for genuine entrepreneurialism, investment reinvestment, so that we can be both pro worker, pro entrepreneurialism, pro fairness, and in the course of that generate up to £12 billion worth of revenues that can be invested. And say that sounds a bit too
- [35:58]
Nick Robinson
good to be true. This is just a tax, not just on the wealthy, but it's a tax on people who've got a bit of savings and they put it into a second home or they put it into a business, they put it into shares, they've already paid tax well on their income, they're going to pay tax again on that capital gains.
- [36:16]
Wes Streeting
Well, what they say is, here he
- [36:18]
Nick Robinson
is, he's moving to the left to try and see off Andy Burnham. It's a left wing proposal, let's have a wealthy tax.
- [36:24]
Wes Streeting
So I'd just say two things to rebut that. Firstly, under the proposals that I'm putting out, around half of people who play capital gains tax will end up paying a lower rate than they do now. And we will be incentivizing and encouraging those types of investment that help our economy to grow and improve our nation's productivity. And we are all better off when we're, when we're, when the country is better off. So that's a good thing. The second thing to your point of is he just tacking left because there's a leadership contest on. I will refer your viewers and listeners back to a no doubt extremely well read pamphlet, Let Us Face the Future Again, which I published in March 2020, where I floated exactly this type of proposal. And this isn't just my idea. You've got people like the Resolution Foundation, Dan Needle, the tax expert, who are all kind of out there making this case, which for a wealth tax that works, that is pro fairness, pro business and entrepreneurialism and pro growth.
- [37:24]
Nick Robinson
Now there is another category and that's
- [37:25]
Wes Streeting
a sweet spot already out there.
- [37:27]
Nick Robinson
Who wants to be the next Prime Minister? And Labour leader, Andy Burnham, he says this country has been ruined by 40 years of neoliberalism. It's all gone wrong since Thatcher, which interestingly, includes the Blair and Brown governments. Is he right?
- [37:44]
Wes Streeting
Well, I'm sure that Andy wasn't criticising the Blair and Brown governments because he was in it and he was there at the time. I'm proud of what the last Labour government achieved. I didn't agree with all of it. I left the Labour Party briefly over Iraq and the trebling of university tuition fees, until I was persuaded by a friend to, you've got to be in it to win it, and that the Labour Party might not be perfect, but it's the best vehicle for social justice this country's ever had. And thank goodness I did rejoin the Labour Party, otherwise I wouldn't be here. But, you know, I do think that where this country has gone fundamentally wrong is that issue that I've set out in the Commons today as we're speaking, which is that the prospects for the next generation are worse than last. Never happened in our modern history. And that is the thing that I think is fundamentally broken about the country, that broken social contract that we need to repair.
- [38:42]
Nick Robinson
The other big idea that you've already got out is to rejoin the eu. Now, you use a phrase, a new special relationship. It's a great phrase, I confess. I've no idea what it means. When do you want to rejoin the eu? How do you want to rejoin the eu?
- [38:58]
Wes Streeting
So, a few things. Firstly, we were elected on a clear manifesto and we should stick to it. Firstly, because politicians should keep their promises. And secondly, on this issue, perhaps above many others, is even more important to respect the voters. So I think that within those red lines set out in our manifesto, we should be negotiating with the European Union a maximalist position to get as good a trade deal as we can get through a range of sectoral deals that I think would have the benefit of both benefiting the EU and benefiting Britain. And also proving, especially in communities that voted to leave the European Union, that working more closely with the EU is both desirable and impactful.
- [39:42]
Nick Robinson
And I think so. If you want to rejoin, you'd have to put it in another.
- [39:46]
Wes Streeting
Well, here's the key thing about. You'd have to win the key thing about rejoining there. I mean, I think this is a marathon, not a sprint. And I think to be. And part of my frustration, actually, with the way that my comments and Andy's comments were seized on, you would have thought, from some of the commentary that Andy and I had both seen, said, let's rejoin The European Union tomorrow. I think either of us have said that. What we've said is that it is in Britain's long term interest to be in the European Union. We regret that we left, but I think that in order to rejoin, there is something fundamental that would have to be true, which is it would have to be the settled will of the country because it's not in the interests of the EU or the UK for there to be a hokey cokey. And you can't just be in out. We saw the disruption that leaving caused. So you can't repeat that over and over again. But I think the country is, I think, seeing and feeling the impact of Brexit. And as I've said so many times before, change begins with an argument. It is okay for those of us who voted Remain and thought Brexit was a mistake to say so and to point out the proof points, because what I find extraordinary is lots of my friends and my constituents who voted Leave, they've got no problem in saying, do you know what? I voted to leave the European Union and that Farage sold us a pack of lies and the politicians cocked it up.
- [41:08]
Nick Robinson
Would there have to be another referendum? Would there have to be another referendum or would an election do it?
- [41:13]
Wes Streeting
Well, I think it would have to be. I think it would have to be a pretty consistent, settled view of the country, Nick, to be honest, I think you couldn't have like, you know, a few months of opinion polling saying a majority of people would rejoin. And then the other thing, and this is the other important point, the terms upon which we would rejoin also matter. And, you know, I would have concerns and I'd want to, you know, around the single currency, for example. We were never in the Schengen Agreement. In many respects, that was the tragedy of Brexit. The first, you know, last time around there was a British deal, we had a deal unlike any other and we chose to walk away. Now, you can't change that. That's water under the bridge. But what you can do is recognize that it is in Britain's and Europe's strategic interests for us to pull together. And you can listen not just to what our European friends are saying, but what our Canadian friends are saying. Look at what Mark Carney said about the middling powers. At the moment. Europe as a continent is sandwiched between these two superpowers of the United States of America on one hand, China on the other, the United States, an unpredictable superpower with President Trump. China, a rising superpower with a completely different set of values. I tell you what's unique. And that's why I think the democratic nations of the world, not just here in Europe but elsewhere, need to pull together in common interest economically for our security and our values.
- [42:39]
Nick Robinson
Just a brief one on that. Ministers are said to be unhappy that the Prime Minister altered the sanctions on Russian oil. Are they right to be?
- [42:53]
Wes Streeting
When I listened to the BBC bulletins this morning, yes, I was in exactly the same boat. And then you thought what?
- [43:01]
Nick Robinson
When you heard.
- [43:01]
Wes Streeting
Well, I thought we. I listened to the bulletins, I thought, why have we watered down Russian sanctions? And then it became clear, listening to ministers, that actually this was, I don't think my colleagues would mind me saying, more cock up than conspiracy, actually. We've got a stronger sanctions regime in place. What happened was some transitional regulations went up on the government website before the sanctions that bite went up on another part of the government website. So, interestingly, and you know, and I think it is always refreshing when people just say, actually, I got this wrong. Chris Bryant, the Trade Minister, in the comments today, he didn't say, oh, the BBC got it wrong. What he said was one bit of the story went up on one part of the government's website, then another bit on another part of the government's website, and the journalists reported one without the other. And that's my fault and the government's fault, not the journalists. And so it was cock up rather than conspiracy. And that was reassuring to me because I think the war in Ukraine is the front line for freedom and democracy in Europe. And we've got to stand absolutely steadfast behind President Zelenskyy and the Ukrainian.
- [44:11]
Nick Robinson
Now, anybody listening to this interview, anybody watching your speech will not have any doubt. I suspect Keir Starmer wouldn't have any doubt that you're better at giving interviews and you're better at giving speeches than Keir Starmer. But they might say, there is nothing that you said in your speech that Keir Starmer couldn't have said and at times has said, albeit slightly less eloquently, isn't the danger that this is all about talk. It is not about a clear plan of alternative policies to what the government is now doing.
- [44:48]
Wes Streeting
I think the government does have a communication problem and I think that is substantial and it's a key reason why we are losing to reform. But I don't think it's just a problem of communication and style. I think it is a problem of substance as well. I think that when you look at this government and the mistakes that we've made and the choices that were made, it led to people to question our values and whether we were in the right place. Going out early on Winter Fuel, for example, a decision that was not properly debated and put to Cabinet for scrutiny and political discussion, that was presented as a fait accompli on the day that it was announced at the island of Strangers speech, which I think took all of us back because we thought, hang on a minute, what are we saying about this country and its island story and the people from a whole range of backgrounds and faiths and cultures that have made Britain the country that it is today, that are working in the health service and social care, are working in finance and the creative industries who are giving so much and that. Whose talents that we want to draw. And then, of course, there is clarity of vision and direction. In the health service, for example, yes, we've seen performance improve and there are a number of things that I'm proud of that we've achieved.
- [46:11]
Nick Robinson
In the first half, you spent an awful lot of money and famously you said to me, I think in your first interview as Health Secretary, you'd sort out the doctors strike. What happened? You gave them a load of money and they're still on strike. So there are some things that have improved. It was not exactly a triumph, was it?
- [46:28]
Wes Streeting
I'm not going to pretend that everything is hunky dory after barely two years in government and we can come back to the doctor strike if you want to, but, I mean, I think that's more of a reflection on the BMA than it is on the government, to be honest. But I think in terms of where we are on the health service, one of the reasons why we have made so much progress so quickly is because we've had clear vision and it's not just about investment, it's modernisation, it's the money going further.
- [46:55]
Nick Robinson
But putting aside the doctor strike that you said you'd sought and the Tories hadn't is a bit like me saying, you know, other than breaking your legs, I treated you really successfully. You know, it's fundamental. You said, get me into power, I'll sort the doctors out.
- [47:08]
Wes Streeting
I don't know. I don't think the doctor strike is fundamental and the waiting list performance improves that I've actually managed to deliver on our targets despite the doctor strikes. We've increased the productivity of the health service. The target was 2%. We achieved 2.7, 2.8%. I mean, the private sector would. Would bend over backwards. There's another interview, another interview to do
- [47:29]
Nick Robinson
at length, about Your record in the
- [47:31]
Wes Streeting
NHS centers, the NHS app, power to the patient, the first NHS online hospital trust. It's not just the investment, because I think this is important and I've heard a couple of my colleagues in the Cabinet recently saying, well, the NHS improved because the investment we put in. Don't delude yourself that just pouring money into the NHS delivers results. It is the modernization agenda that goes with it and we need to have that same approach across government. If we're going to invest in defence, and we should, we need to reform the mod, reform the way the services work, look at our personnel, look at our kit and our capability. It's investment match with modernisation. That will be true for education, it will be true for transport, it will be true across the board. There's another thing that has not had a coherent domestic agenda. Internationally, I think the Prime Minister has done a great job. Domestically, I don't think we've had a strong enough political agenda or grip.
- [48:25]
Nick Robinson
There's another thing they say, judgment. You know what I'm going to ask you. You were a mate of Peter Mandelson's. You backed Peter Mandelson even after it emerged that he was a friend of Jeffrey Epstein. You were mentored by Peter Mandelson. Your partner, Joe, is an advisor to Peter Mandelson. So people say, you know, if you think Keir Starmer hasn't got the judgment, neither's Wes treating.
- [48:47]
Wes Streeting
Well, I'd say a couple of things. I mean, firstly, I mean, you know, people can see the, the extent of my interactions with Peter Mandelson because I've put my messages out there. And I definitely think that the thing that went fundamentally wrong in Mandelson's appointment as our ambassador is the fact that a hard headed judgment was made who can deal with Trump. And the voices, the experiences of Epstein's victims were not given the weight that they should have been given. And I think that speaks to a culture of not deliberate, but nonetheless present sexism and misogyny in our public life, in our institutions. And we have to face up to that. And I know that, and you do have to face up to that, and I absolutely own it. And in fact, you know, I've, I've written and spoken at length about that in, in this particular context, but also more broadly in terms of the Health Service. I mean, I wouldn't have appointed Peter Mandelson based on what was known. In fact, to be honest, my, my choice would have been David Miliband if given the choice of U.S. ambassador. But I also think that you know, when it comes to. When it comes to this kind of core issue, you know, Peter Mandelson betrayed Gordon Brown. I think he betrayed this Prime Minister. I think he's got no future in public life. I have made, made and had no contact with him since he left his job and was sacked. And I've no intention of ever that.
- [50:16]
Nick Robinson
That ever changing now, given all we've discussed, and there'll be many more weeks and many more interviews to come, there'll be some saying, well, it's all too late for West Treaty, isn't it? He didn't run against Keir Starmer. We don't think he had the 81 names necessary of MPs to do it. And the latest poll put him on 4% of the labour members who might vote. Andy Burnham would slaughter you, says that poll. Even Keir Starmer would beat you. Are you still a credible candidate?
- [50:46]
Wes Streeting
Oh, Nick, I've been the underdog all my life and I've beaten the odds all my life. And as I said last week, this has got to be a battle of ideas, not just of personalities. And we've got to move away from petty factionalism that's held the Labour Party back. And, you know, I did. I really do wish that I could believe that the Labour Party could win the next general election and see off Reform and keep Keir as Prime Minister. And we've been in the trenches together. This has not. It's not been comfortable or easy saying publicly what I've said privately for a while now. And I cannot get away from this moral dilemma, and I think it is a moral dilemma of ceding power in this country to nationalism in the way that we did just a fortnight ago and seeing so many good Labour people losing, not through fault of their own, but because of the unpopularity of this government. So unless we change course, we are going to hand the keys of this country to Nigel Farage and reform. And I would not be able to live with myself. I knew that leaving government in the way that I did would be criticized. I knew that there'd be lots of labor members who would disagree because we're a loyal tribe. But I had to do what I thought was right. And it goes back to, you know, the key, key thing about me. You won't always agree with me, but you will know where I stand.
- [52:31]
Nick Robinson
There are some who won't forgive you for splitting that tribe as they see it, and they think you're a player of the. Of the political game. You might be interested. We spoke to the man who interviewed you to get into Cambridge University, a man called Professor John Morrill. He's a big admirer of yours, a biographer of Cromwell, as it happens, and he said, I know you don't get to the top of politics. He told us, by idealism and insouciance. Guile is necessary too. Is that the right word to sum up Wes treating he's got the guile to lead.
- [53:08]
Wes Streeting
How to describe myself? I am and have always been like Labour to the core. I am tribally Labour. I love this party, I love our country. I want to see us doing better. And I have always stuck to my guns and stuck to my principles and I think that is the kind of leadership the country needs at a time when those principles are being so heavily contested by the by the forces of nationalism.
- [53:40]
Nick Robinson
Words treating thank you for joining me again on Political Thinking. Thank you. Thanks for listening to this episode of Political Thinking. The producers were Hannah Wilkinson and Flora Murray. The editor is Giles Edwards. There are hundreds of previous conversations like this on BBC Sounds two indeed, with Wes treating himself when he was in opposition and when he first entered the Cabinet. So do go back, have a listen to that or any other episode and once you're on BBC Sounds tap, subscribe and each new episode will drop into your feed as soon as they're released. Also there you'll find my colleague Amal Rajan's podcast Radical.
- [54:30]
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