The British public have a sense of despair about the way the country is run and Labour must demonstrate it can deliver in office, Wes Streeting said.
The Cabinet minister said Sir Keir Starmer’s administration had not told a “compelling enough story” about its achievements, and he acknowledged people were not yet feeling the change they voted for at the general election.
His comments came in the wake of the party’s humiliation in the Senedd by-election in Caerphilly, a town which has been Labour for more than 100 years.
Mr Streeting compared Labour’s third place in Caerphilly to the 2021 Hartlepool by-election, which led Sir Keir to contemplate resigning as party leader.
He told the Sunday Times that Sir Keir “not only took that result on the chin, he took it to heart” and used it to accelerate his reform of the Labour Party in opposition.
“We’ve got to take the message from Caerphilly not just on the chin, we’ve got to take it to heart – and we have got to change the way our Labour Government drives change and delivers in just the same way we did in opposition after Hartlepool,” Mr Streeting said.
Sir Keir has faced a bruising week, with chaos in the grooming gangs inquiry, the return of a small boat migrant who was sent to France under the one in, one out deal, the blunder which saw Hadush Kebatu released from prison, and the Caerphilly loss where Labour came a distant third behind Plaid Cymru and Reform UK.
Mr Streeting told Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips on Sky News: “There is a deep disillusionment in this country at the moment and, I’d say, a growing sense of despair about whether anyone is capable of turning this country around.
“Now, I am an optimist in politics. I think there are green shoots of recovery in the NHS, in the economy, in our public services, but there is also so much more to do, and we’ve got to attack those challenges with the level of energy and focus that the scale of the challenge demands.”
He insisted Sir Keir understood the scale of the challenge facing the Government.
“Part of the frustration, I think, lots of us feel is that there are lots of good things this Labour Government has done in our first 15 months. I think people are not yet feeling the change,” Mr Streeting continued.
“If I have one criticism of us collectively as a team, we are not telling a compelling enough story about who we are, who we’re for and what it is we are driving to do.”
He added that by the next general election Labour had to show “how things have improved across the board, and we want people to feel that change”.
That was the lesson “of what happened on Thursday and some of our other not-so-great election results since we came”, he said.
On Saturday, Labour’s newly-elected deputy leader Lucy Powell called on Sir Keir to be bolder and show “whose side we are on”.
Ms Powell, who was sacked from the Prime Minister’s Cabinet last month, said Sir Keir’s Government had to show a “stronger sense of our purpose”.
She warned against Labour shifting to the right to counter the threat posed by Nigel Farage, warning “we can’t out-Reform Reform”.
Ms Powell’s election could spell trouble for Sir Keir as Ms Powell will be free to speak out against his Government’s policies from the backbenches rather than being bound by collective responsibility like her defeated deputy leadership rival, Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson.
The new deputy leader said: “We have to offer hope, to offer the big change the country is crying out for.
“We must give a stronger sense of our purpose, whose side we are on and of our Labour values and beliefs.”
She said that “people feel that this Government is not being bold enough in delivering the kind of change we promised”.
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