Starmer holds 16-minute meeting with Streeting amid leadership crisis

"Wes Streeting has held talks with Keir Starmer in Downing Street as an ally of the health secretary renewed calls for the prime minister to resign, saying his authority had irretrievably ebbed away. Streeting arrived in No 10 on Wednesday morning amid intense speculation over Labour's leadership crisis and his own future within the party. He left approximately 16 minutes later without commenting to the media."

"The health secretary's allies had sought to portray Wednesday's meeting as a moment for Streeting to speak candidly about his concerns. But No 10 insiders suggested Streeting was playing down speculation that he was on the brink of declaring his candidacy for the leadership. The meeting came shortly after Dr Zubir Ahmed, who resigned from his junior health minister role on Tuesday, blamed Starmer for Labour's disastrous local election results and urged the prime minister to set out a timetable for his departure in an orderly expedient transition."

"We, in Scotland, as in the rest of the UK, had a devastating set of election results and we were simply unable to articulate our offering, or indeed critique, of the SNP government because of the noise created at the centre. Therefore, we became, and the prime minister became, the inadvertent midwife of a fifth-term SNP government. And that scenario you saw then, people waiting for a speech to try and articulate his new direction, a strategy, and it simply was not forthcoming."

"When asked if the reaction among Labour MPs had been spontaneous, Ahmed said: This is not one faction of the Labour party. This is a"

Wes Streeting met Keir Starmer at Downing Street and left about 16 minutes later without commenting to the media. The meeting occurred during intense speculation about Labour’s leadership crisis and Streeting’s future within the party. Allies of the health secretary tried to frame the meeting as an opportunity for him to speak candidly about concerns, while No 10 insiders suggested he was downplaying speculation about declaring a leadership candidacy. The meeting followed Dr Zubir Ahmed’s resignation as a junior health minister. Ahmed blamed Starmer for Labour’s poor local election results and urged a timetable for Starmer’s departure to enable an orderly transition. Ahmed said Labour could not challenge the SNP in Scotland due to noise from the centre, describing Starmer as enabling a fifth-term SNP government.

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