Wednesday, January 14, 2026
The blame game and the leadership stakes
The paper says that Streeting's comments will be seen as an attack on complaints by allies of Keir Starmer that change has been constantly delayed by the number of regulations and arm’s-length bodies:
One of the prime minister’s former key aides Paul Ovenden authored a piece earlier this month about the power of a “stakeholder state”. He said campaign groups, regulators, litigators, trade bodies and well-networked organisations were hobbling any change the government wanted to pursue. Starmer himself has voiced frustration that “levers” that he could pull as prime minister often resulted in obstruction.
At the same conference, Streeting’s comments were echoed by Louise Casey, the lead non-executive director in Whitehall, who said the government needed to “just stop” complaining it was difficult to get things done. However, she also highlighted a “sense of learned helplessness and hopelessness” within the civil service and an “intransigence” in the face of change.
In his remarks, Streeting said he was angered to see his own side making similar comments to the hard right about public services’ inability to change.
He said: “The right encourage this argument. They are rolling the pitch to come in with a chainsaw and tear up public services entirely.
“Bafflingly, some on my own side of the political divide have begun to parrot the same argument. They complain about the civil service. They blame stakeholder capture.
“This excuses culture does the centre-left no favours. If we tell the public that we can’t make anything work, then why on earth would they vote to keep us in charge?”
Streeting likened the state to a shopping trolley with a “wonky wheel” which is primed towards the status quo. But he said that was no excuse for poor steering.
“We should be in no doubt that they are excuses… There’s no point complaining about the wonky wheel if you’re letting the trolley have a mind of its own, instead of steering it towards the destination you’re after.
“We are not simply at the mercy of forces outside of our control. Our fortunes are in our hands. And it is precisely because we on centre-left believe in the power of the state to transform people’s lives, that we are best placed to change it.”
Streeting said politicians should be getting on with fixing the issues without delay. “Where there aren’t levers, we build them. Where there are barriers, we bulldoze them. Where there is poor performance, we challenge it,” he said.
He said that reform of public services was “one of the greatest challenges of our age … Failure in this area has led to disaffection, cynicism, and ultimately the rise of populists.”
But he said it was also urgent because of surging demand for health and care services, including people managing multiple conditions, failures in prevention and demand for mental health and special needs services. And he said people were paying more and more but getting “a poorer service in return”.
“They rightly ask: if I can track a parcel across the world, why can’t the state tell me what’s happening with my case? Why do I have to tell my story five times? Why do I have to travel, queue, wait and chase? Unless the state modernises it will become increasingly irrelevant to the lives of its citizens.
“Failure to address these challenges is creating a national mood of cynicism and pessimism. But the most corrosive sense of all is fatalism: the idea that things can’t change.”
Starmer had told the liaison committee of MPs before Christmas of his own frustrations with the delays built into the functioning of government.
“My experience now as prime minister is of frustration that every time I go to pull a lever there are a whole bunch of regulations, consultations, arm’s-length bodies that mean that the action from pulling the lever to delivery is longer than I think it ought to be, which is among the reasons why I want to cut down on regulation, generally and within government,” he told the committee.
The Labour leadership campaign really is up and running.
