Emma Barnett

And he wants to lead the debate, for now at least it seems, from the back benches.

She might vote for him.

I think what's happened here is that West Reading has made the best of a bad job because I think he rightly will have concluded that given the speculation, given the fact that they had allowed the impression to build and build and build, that he was going to resign.

that if he didn't resign at this point, 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 and I've had a word with the prime minister and he gets it, that, frankly, his political reputation would have been irrecoverable.

That he would have been lessened to the point of non-existence.

Yes, exactly.

And so I think that they have concluded that...

probably know that they don't have the numbers.

I suspect earlier in the week they had hoped that he would be able to generate the numbers.

It didn't happen.

And so he was basically confronted with a choice of going back, basically destroying your own political reputation, being forever known as a bottler.

As I say, I think there is almost no member of the cabinet who has cultivated their impression and their reputation with the press than Wes Streeting has had.

And so I think he has concluded that the best thing that he could do, even if he doesn't have the numbers, is to basically do a Michael Heseltine, which is walk out of the cabinet, set himself up as a king over the water.

Try and cultivate, continue to cultivate his profile and his reputation, both in the country, the party at large, but also within the parliamentary Labour Party.

And hope, and this could happen, hope that something else comes along, which knocks Keir Starmer off course.

And until Andy Burnham is in Parliament, that he has established himself as the primary heir apparent.

There is another interpretation of it that someone...

in the government was putting to me, less friendly to him, I think it's fair to say, this is what's happened.

Wes didn't have the numbers.

He spent them all morning trying to persuade Cabinet to move against Keir and failed.