now09.08 BSTStreeting says Labour ministers know, if they don't deliver change, they will be voted outWes Streeting, the health secretary, said in his interviews this morning that ministers knew that, if they failed to deliver change, they would be voted out.This is what he told LBC (although he said almost exactly the same thing in most of his interviews).
In government, we’re genuinely impatient for change. We are going hard at the challenges that the public has set for us.
And we’re under no illusion – and I think the voters have sent us a fundamental message ‘we voted for change with Labour last year, if you don’t deliver change, if we’re not feeling it, we’ll vote for change elsewhere’.
So we’ve got that message loud and clear. We take the results on the chin.
Streeting also argued that it was reasonable for the government to say it needed more time to deliver change, stressing that it has been in office for less than a year. He told the Today programme:
All that people care about is the results. At the next general election, the question will be really simple for people – is our country better today than it was when the this government was elected? Am I feeling better off in my pocket? Is our NHS performing better? Is it there for me when I need it? Do my kids go to good schools? Are my streets safe? Have they talked about the borders?
Those are the practical things that people care about and, on every single one of those fronts, we can point to progress, we can point to improvement.
Is the job done? Of course, it isn’t. We’ve not even been in a year yet.
View image in fullscreenWes Streeting on BBC Breakfast this morning. Photograph: BBCShare