Wes Streeting

And it was part of... If you think back to what was going on...

you know, when there was that kind of initial sort of Downing Street briefing operation and drive-by.

Like, it was in that sort of context, I think, that, you know, my...

my kind of motivations were being kind of challenged by the prime minister.

And I found that quite hard personally, because I, I would, I would have hoped if there's one thing people know about me by now, I'm not backwards in coming forwards.

I am a straight shooter.

I, I, I know I can put people's noses out of joint sometimes, but I say what I mean and mean what I say.

And I, in that moment,

And at that time, I cannot tell you how difficult it was listening to people, good people, British doctors, describe to me as their health secretary what they had witnessed.

And I felt both a moral duty to share it with my colleagues and across the government to make sure that we knew what was going on.

I wanted people to see it as they were making consequential decisions about whether this government would recognise a Palestinian state and what actions this government would take.

Did the British government do enough on Gaza?

Objectively, no.

We were slow off the mark.

And don't get me wrong, there are lots of things that we've done that I am proud of.

The recognition, the sanctions and the Gaza medical evacuation scheme, which Zubair Ahmed, as one of the ministers who resigned recently, did a really great job on.

And, you know, to critics and cynics who say, well, you should have resigned.

Actually, I was doing something more important.

I was shifting the government to a better position.

I don't think that's true.