Political Reporter

Labour’s right has started sniping at each other over blame for the government’s poor performance.

Health Secretary Wes Streeting, the leading Blair wing contender to succeed Keir Starmer, slammed an ex-Number 10 aide for blaming all the woes on an intractable Civil Service and others.

Paul Ovenden was forced to quit as a top Downing Street adviser after his vile tweets about Diane Abbott were revealed in Paul Holden’s book The Fraud.

He subsequently complained about the “stakeholder state” obstructing change.

But Mr Streeting warned against such an “excuses culture” on the grounds it made politicians look pointless.

The Health Secretary said Labour should not be echoing right-wing complaints about the impossibility of improvement.

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?”

In words suggesting his leadership bid is already under way, he added: “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.

“Where there aren’t levers, we build them. Where there are barriers, we bulldoze them. Where there is poor performance, we challenge it.”