Health Secretary Wes Streeting has been grilled on GB News over criticism from within his own party that Labour has abandoned its core supporters.
GB News host Camilla Tominey confronted Streeting with comments from Labour MP Dan Carden, who recently wrote that “people have had enough” of various failures under the current Government.
Carden, who leads the Blue Labour group in Parliament, published his critique in the Daily Mail yesterday, suggesting the party faces a crisis of confidence among working-class voters.
The criticism comes in the wake of Thursday’s local elections, which Carden described as “life or death” for the Labour Government.
Wes Streeting said “he agrees” with the comments
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Speaking on GB News,Camilla Tominey said: “People have had enough. Enough of low wages and sky-high bills. Enough of high streets being left to rot.
“Enough of crumbling infrastructure and public services that don’t work. Enough of broken promises.
“Do you know who said that? It was your Labour colleague, the Labour MP Dan Carden. So even your own colleagues think that you’re doing a bad job.”
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Wes Streeting replied: “Well, I agree with Dan on every single word you’ve just read out. I agree with him entirely, and I think that’s the impatience people are feeling.
“That’s why people are hungry for change, because all of those challenges, and there are many more I could list, were challenges we walked into last July.
“Turning the country around, when it’s facing multiple and deep crises, does take time.
“So the impatience people are feeling, I feel it too. That’s one of the reasons why, in my day-to-day work, I’m constantly pushing to go faster. I’m always being told by people to slow down, but I’m going harder.”
Camilla then challenged Streeting on the Government’s controversial winter fuel allowance cuts, describing it as Labour’s “poll tax policy” that was “universally unpopular, even with your own voters”.
She suggested most people cited it as their reason for not backing Labour in the recent elections.
Streeting acknowledged the policy’s unpopularity: “I’m not going to insult your viewers or the voters by pretending that winter fuel allowance hasn’t been an issue on the doorstep. It has.”
Camilla then challenged Streeting on the government’s controversial winter fuel allowance cuts
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Despite this, he defended the decision as necessary to “invest in public services like the NHS”.
Carden’s criticism reflects growing discontent among Labour voters, with his article warning that people are “turning to Reform” not out of conviction but because “he can’t be worse than the rest of them”.
The MP believes Keir Starmer “could be a great prime minister” but only if “he turns words into action” and “governs with the strength now needed”.
