Archie Bland

Yeah, you know, I don't think it's ideal for Streeting to go now because he's worried that it looks opportunistic.

He doesn't want to be the first one out of the blocks on this, but he may feel that he doesn't have an opportunity if he's not the first one out of the blocks because of the way things are going.

He may feel, as you say, that it's now or never.

As far as his allies go...

Another of them, Peter Kyle, who said that he couldn't possibly be planning a leadership bid because they went to the Devil Wears Prada 2 together a few days ago.

Very important facts.

Absolutely.

He came out in support of Keir Starmer.

So it's quite hard to have comprehensive readings of these things from the tea leaves that are swilling around at the moment.

But, you know, it does look more and more like this is really going to happen now.

And I think Streeting will probably feel that he is far from in an ideal position to do it, but he has to get on with it.

Yeah.

And I think there is a kind of a policy related aspect to this.

And it's not just a question of the personalities involved.

When you look at this slate of bills and the King's speech, the kind of way that they've sought to present it is now we're really delivering.

We're two years into our programme for government by the end of this.

And

we're going to show you that we're changing the country.

When you actually look at this speech, it's not obvious what in here is going to have that kind of substantive impact on the way that people feel about a Labour government.

And so even though speech feels like a bit of a sideshow, I think it is also slightly indicative in the same way that Starmer's speech was on Monday, that they keep trying these resets, but they don't necessarily have the substance underneath them that will make it actually land with people.