The scale of the infighting within Keir Starmer‘s divided Cabinet was laid bare yesterday.
One senior minister admitted she was dismayed in the wake of renewed attacks by the Prime Minister’s allies against Wes Streeting for harbouring leadership ambitions.
Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy urged her colleagues to end the anonymous briefings against each other and instead focus on working to improve public services.
It came after the PM’s right-hand man Darren Jones was accused of pushing for the Health Secretary to be sacked over supposed disloyalty.
Ms Nandy told Times Radio: ‘I’d just say to anybody who’s briefing in any direction about anything at the moment, stop it. We’ve got a job to do.’
Asked if Mr Streeting had been too critical of the Government – after he said ministers should ‘get it right first time’ following a series of U-turns – Ms Nandy replied: ‘He’s not ambitious to go further in terms of briefing, he’s ambitious to go further in terms of his actual job tackling the problems that people have.
‘We all need to be free to be able to do that and we need to be free of the noise, free of the distraction and able to continue to do that.’
One senior minister admitted she was dismayed in the wake of renewed attacks by the Prime Minister’s allies against Wes Streeting (pictured) for harbouring leadership ambitions
Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy (pictured) urged her colleagues to end the anonymous briefings against each other and instead focus on working to improve public services
Talking to GB News, she denied the Cabinet were jostling to replace Sir Keir but admitted: ‘I don’t want to dress it up for you, it frustrates the hell out of me.’
She said she read the latest stories with a ‘sinking feeling’ and added: ‘I’m frustrated by the noise.
I’m frustrated by the people who go and talk about these things and brief against each other, or leak.
‘I’m frustrated by those people, and I just wish they’d stop it.’
Her comments came after hostilities resumed between Downing Street and Mr Streeting. Last autumn he was the victim of a botched briefing by Sir Keir’s allies who accused him of plotting a leadership challenge.
Mr Streeting insisted at the time he was a ‘faithful’ rather than a traitor and hit out at the ‘toxic’ culture in No 10.
But he has also failed to deny he wants to be PM one day and his recent comments were branded ‘wild’ by one anonymous Cabinet minister last week while another said he was ‘undermining all of us’.
That led to claims that Mr Jones, the Chief Secretary to the PM, was attacking Mr Streeting in order to boost his own chances of succeeding Sir Keir.
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Health Secretary Wes Streeting and Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy are pictured arriving for a Cabinet meeting in Downing Street, London
One source told The Sunday Times: ‘Darren thinks he is playing a clever game. These briefings are carefully calculated to damage Wes and the Prime Minister in order to advance his own leadership ambitions.’
Allies of Mr Streeting condemned the ‘utterly self-defeating briefing’ while those close to Mr Jones insisted he does not attack colleagues.
The leader of the Scottish National Party, John Swinney, yesterday warned Sir Keir that his job is in jeopardy: ‘If I win a majority in the Scottish Parliament elections in May of this year, I don’t think Keir Starmer will be the Prime Minister.’
