Who is Streeting, the new Guido Fawkes of the British Parliament
The Health Minister is the leader of the 'rebels' who openly challenged Prime Minister Starmer on the day of the King's Speech at Westminster
Tradition has it, ever since the days ofKing Charles II and theGlorious Revolution in England, that each new session of Parliament is opened by a speech from the King: it is the only time, since theCivil War of 1600, that the sovereign is allowed to enter Westminster (while an MP is symbolically held 'captive' at Buckingham Palace as ransom).
Today, a speech by King Charles III is scheduled to take place in the English Parliament, but the real news is that the Health Minister, Wes Streeting, has launched into a clash with the Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, on the very day of the 'King's Speech'.
An unusual encounter
Streeting showed up at Downing Street this morning to openly challenge Starmer and defy him. The irritating meeting, before the King's speech, which usually reads a text written by the Prime Minister himself, sounds like a kind of eviction notice: the political signal is that Starmer is now a zombie.
The role of battering ram was precisely given to Streeting, the leader of the rebel Labour MPs, who hold Starmer responsible for last week's electoral rout where ReformUk of Nigel Farage was crowned the country's leading party while the governing party lost 800 seats, the heaviest defeat ever for the British left in a local election.
Who is Labour's battering ram
Streeting's name in the role of the possible Brutus is not accidental: his biography makes him the perfect praetorian to strike the (fatal?) blow against the hated emperor. Appointed Health Secretary in July 2024, Streeting has inherited not just a ministry, but what many call 'the sick man of England': the National Health Service (NHS), Britain's public health service. But in that world, he is at home: he is a son of the working class.
