By DAN HODGES, DAILY MAIL COLUMNIST
Published: 11:44 EST, 13 December 2025 | Updated: 11:44 EST, 13 December 2025
It was Wes Streeting’s Mo Salah interview. Last Saturday, in the wake of his side’s frustrating draw with Leeds United, the legendary Liverpool frontman went public with his frustrations at being left on the bench.
‘I said many times before that I had a good relationship with the manager and all of a sudden we don’t have any relationship,’ he fumed. ‘I don’t know why but it seems to me, how I see it, that someone doesn’t want me in the club.’
Then on Thursday, Labour’s own high-profile star broke cover to take aim at his boss, and those he believes have been attempting to sideline him.
‘It sort of came from the blue,’ Streeting told The New Statesman. ‘I couldn’t understand what on earth they were thinking. Putting to one side the attempted drive-by on me, I could not understand the political strategy of people who purport to be the Prime Minister’s allies going out and saying he’s fighting for his job.’
Salah’s interview made global headlines and sent shockwaves through the footballing world. Streeting’s raised a few eyebrows among his colleagues and generated a couple of comments on Twitter.
But make no mistake, the intervention of the Health Secretary will be resonating long after Salah has waved goodbye to Anfield to embrace the riches of the Saudi Pro League.
Like Salah, Streeting knew precisely what he was doing through his combustible rhetoric.
‘I’m pretty frustrated, to be honest,’ he declared. ‘I feel like on one hand, since we’ve come into government, we’ve actually done a huge amount that we said we’d do… But that’s not reflected in the polls, and I don’t think it’s even reflected in our storytelling. I think we sell ourselves short.’
One Cabinet minister observed that in an interview on Thursday, Wes Streeting was 'remarkably bold'
Like Salah, he had also timed his attack carefully. Liverpool’s manager, Arne Slot, was at his lowest ebb after watching his team squander a two-goal lead and slump to tenth in the table. Streeting’s manager, Keir Starmer, had just seen polling showing Labour had become the most untrusted party in Britain, and Kemi Badenoch’s Tories rising from their crypt to overtake them in the national averages.
The official rationale given for Streeting’s interview was that he was seeking to set out his views over the ongoing industrial action in the NHS. Just as the formal explanation for Salah’s broadside was he was walking past the press mixed zone at Elland Road, and just happened to stop to answer a few journalists’ questions.
But Streeting made a point of ranging far beyond his brief. Broader public service modernisation. Immigration. The economy. As one Cabinet minister observed wryly: ‘Wes was remarkably bold.’
That audaciousness is partly a product of necessity. Labour’s internal cold war is about to turn hot, with some form of challenge against Starmer after next May’s local elections seen as inevitable. Streeting’s calculation is that when that moment comes, he must already have positioned himself as the frontrunner, given rumours of a potential return by Andy Burnham to the Commons.
Hence his decision to launch a full-frontal attack on what he described as the branding of the Government as ‘the maintenance department of the country’. ‘The problem with that kind of practical, technocratic approach is that if someone else comes along and says, “Well, I’ve got a maintenance company too, and mine’s cheaper,” why wouldn’t people go, “OK, well, we’ll give that maintenance team a try,”’ Streeting chided.
The fact that a senior member of the Cabinet feels confident enough to challenge the Prime Minister in such an overt way is further evidence of Sir Keir’s collapsing authority. But it’s a strategy that is not without its risks.
Streeting received broad sympathy from colleagues following the ‘drive-by’ briefing launched against him by Downing Street aides last month. But some of those colleagues are unimpressed by his words on Thursday. In particular, a number of them have taken issue with his assertion he was one of the Cabinet ministers pushing hard for the lifting of the two-child benefit cap.
‘It’s news to me,’ one minister told me. ‘I remember Bridget Phillipson raising it, and Angela Rayner. But Wes didn’t weigh in until it was a done deal.’
Ed Miliband and Angela Rayner are both rumoured to be eyeing leadership bids
Another claimed: ‘Rachel Reeves had to be bounced into it. And trust me, Wes wasn’t doing any of the bouncing. He only spoke up when it was clear where the decision was heading, so he could claim some of the credit.’
But this briefing and counter-briefing simply underlines the infighting and indiscipline that have become the hallmarks of the Starmer administration over the past 12 months.
And in 2026, things are set to get a whole lot worse.
Angela Rayner has been keeping her powder dry. But allies have been briefing she expects to shortly be exonerated by HMRC, which has been examining the tax saga that precipitated her resignation. If and when it does, her plan is to make a major intervention of her own. ‘No 10 thought she was cooked,’ one ally told me, ‘but they’re in for a shock. She’s coming back. And she’s got unfinished business with Starmer.’
Allies of Burnham also expect him to use the New Year to set out his own vision for Labour’s post-Starmer trajectory. And rumours continue to circulate that Ed Miliband is eyeing his own leadership bid. While friends of the former Labour leader discount this, they concede he is frustrated with Starmer’s lacklustre performance and is weighing whether to go public with his concerns.
Downing Street is currently drawing up plans to use January as the springboard for yet another Starmer relaunch. But it is destined to be blown off course by a wave of increasingly aggressive and outspoken noise from his critics. ‘It’s going to be death by a thousand cuts,’ one minister predicted. Actually, it’s going to be death by a thousand articles, speeches and policy pamphlets.
On Thursday, it was Wes Streeting. On Friday, Armed Forces minister Al Carns – increasingly touted as a future leadership contender, and over the shorter term a potential stalking horse – popped up to provide an interview of his own.
In the coming weeks, everyone who entertains hopes of replacing Keir Starmer, who seeks a plum position in the Cabinet of whoever does successfully replace Keir Starmer, or simply wants to go for a spin in the vacuum created by the implosion of Keir Starmer’s authority, is going to casually saunter up to Westminster’s own mixed zone and give vent to their frustrations and ambitions. And there is nothing the Prime Minister can do about it.
‘It seems like the club has thrown me under the bus,’ Mo Salah said emotionally last Saturday.
Keir Starmer is soon going to know exactly how that feels.