Energy Secretary Ed Miliband Encourages Labour to Look Ahead After Keir Starmer Offers Apology to Wes Streeting for Negative Media Leaks
Senior Labour Party official Energy Secretary Ed Miliband has urged the party to put aside internal conflicts after PM Keir Starmer directly expressed regret to Health Secretary Wes Streeting over hostile briefings originating from Number 10.
Important Developments
- Miliband confirms Starmer will sack the Downing Street source responsible for targeting Wes Streeting if identified
- Miliband dismisses any leadership aspirations, saying his past experience as leader was the "best vaccine" against desiring the role again
- British economy grew by just 0.1 percent in the third quarter, affected by the Jaguar Land Rover security breach
Context
The political turmoil began after media stories emerged about negative briefings from the Prime Minister's allies targeting the Health Secretary. Despite early attempts to downplay the incident, the conversation between Starmer and the health minister reportedly followed a different direction.
The Prime Minister apologised to Streeting, reporters have been informed. The exchange was short, and they did not discuss Morgan McSweeney, whom Starmer is now under increasing scrutiny to remove.
The Energy Secretary's Statement
In his morning media appearances, Ed Miliband stressed the need for the party to concentrate on country-wide matters rather than party conflicts.
Clearly, I think the backgrounding has been unhelpful, certainly.
But my call to the Labour party now is quite simple, which is we need to concentrate on the nation, not each other.
We were given a major election win last summer, a historic opportunity to transform our country. And we have a major obligation.
Growth Update
In other news, government figures indicated the UK economy grew by just 0.1% in the July-September period, with the industrial industry particularly affected by the recent JLR security incident.
The Day's Schedule
- Morning: The National Health Service publishes its monthly statistics
- Today: The Health Secretary is visiting Liverpool
- Today: Rachel Reeves speaks to the press
- 11.30am: Downing Street conducts its regular media briefing
- Today: Keir Starmer announces plans for the Britain's first small modular reactor plant at Wylfa on the island of Anglesey
