Emma Barnett

It adds to this sense of just mess about the last four days.

If he had gone back with a tail tucked between the legs and actually said, you know what, I'm going to stay in the cabinet, frankly, his political reputation would have been irrecoverable.

Absolutely.

It's John.

It's Maitlis.

It's Lewis.

And we're recording this just after half past one on Thursday.

And Westminster, the news has ricocheted around Westminster that Wes Streeting has, after all of that build-up, finally decided to resign.

He has sent a letter to the Prime Minister, which is both a series of compliments to himself on his own record as Health Secretary, but also...

basically a character assassination of the Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, accusing him of failing to take responsibility for the failings of his own government.

He says in the letter, where we need vision, we have vacuum.

Where we need direction, we have drift.

He says that he always fails to take responsibility for his own failings and that too often that has meant other people falling on their swords.

He says he has a heavy handed approach to dissenting voices, saying it diminishes our politics in the process.

And he reaches his climax by saying it is clear now that you will not lead the Labour Party into the next general election and that Labour MPs and Labour unions want to debate about what comes next next.

for the battle of ideas.

Crucially, he does not say, however, in the letter, that he is challenging the Prime Minister for the leadership.

And I've been told by a source close to West Street that he will not be challenging today.

and that the letter addresses the reason why.

He wants, he says, to have the widest, and this is a very intriguing bit, the widest possible number of voices as part of that contest.