Wes Streeting: PM-in-waiting or ‘this generation’s David Miliband’?

Health secretary’s lack of challenge had reassured Starmer and his allies – but then briefings about a speculative Thursday launch emerged As the unofficial political truce of the king’s speech approached, with still no sign of a leadership challenge from Wes Streeting, some of his Labour colleagues assumed the health secretary’s chance to go for the top job might have passed for ever. “There is a risk he becomes the David Miliband of this generation if he doesn’t do something,” one MP said, a reference to another longtime heir apparent who never made the final step. But then, more or less exactly as the monarch’s state coach arrived at parliament, the briefings began: Streeting would resign, perhaps as early as Thursday, and push for a leadership election. What had changed? In one sense, nothing more than events. Streeting’s ambition has long been a subject for open discussion and frequent jokes within Labour, including self-deprecating ones from the man himself. So while his allies played down the prospect of a bid as recently as the weekend, this was largely in the hope that Starmer would step down, or another candidate would enter the fray. Billed as “planni