After days of speculation, Wes Streeting has resigned as health secretary, saying he has lost confidence in the prime minister. has called for a leadership contest to replace him.
He has yet to launch a leadership challenge of his own,. he does not pull his punches in a letter to Sir Keir Starmer, saying: "Where we need vision, we have a vacuum. Where we need direction, we have drift."
He calls for a leadership contest which is "a battle of ideas, not of personalities or petty factionalism".
And although he does not name Andy Burnham in the letter. he appears to nod towards the Greater Manchester mayor's inclusion in the contest.
"It needs to be broad, and it needs the best possible field of candidates. I support that approach and I hope that you will facilitate this," he writes.
The now former health secretary. 43, has made no secret of his desire to hold the top job one day, although he has always denied he would challenge Sir Keir directly.
His supporters believe he has the political skills. fluent style to sell Labour's message more effectively than Sir Keir but as a figure on the right of the party he might struggle to appeal to more left-leaning colleagues.
He has quietly been clearing the decks for a leadership run for some time - even taking the unusual step ofreleasing private messageshe had exchanged with Lord Mandelson. insisting they had never been close friends.
This was designed to kill off claims that he had been a close friend of the disgraced peer. who was sacked as the UK's ambassador to Washington in the wake of the Epstein scandal.
He insisted in public that he had no plans to launch a challenge.
During one fevered bout of speculation last autumn. he was forced to deny suggestions from the prime minister's allies he was planning to move against him the wake of November's Budget.
The briefings. he insisted, were the "worst attack on a faithful" since rugby player Joe Marler had been banished in the finale of hit TV show Celebrity Traitors.
But he said in his resignation letter. Labour's heavy losses to Reform UK in last week's local elections in England had forced his hand.
Born in east London in 1983 to teenaged parents. Streeting grew up in poverty, in what he has described as a "grotty" council flat in Stepney.
His two grandfathers. both named Bill, were key figures in his early life, later providing inspiration for the title of his 2023 memoir.
His maternal grandfather served time in prison for armed robbery. whilst his grandfather on his father's side was a "traditional working-class Tory" who had served in the Navy during the Second World War.
He has said his upbringing left him "quite cynical" of the role of the state compared with many Labour colleagues. aware of its failings as well as its potential to enable opportunity.
After attending a central London comprehensive school. he read history at Cambridge, becoming the first in his family to go to university.
During his second year he came out as gay. something Streeting, a practising Anglican, says he found hard to reconcile at the time with his Christian faith.
Streeting was obsessed with Labour politics from an early age, which,he told FE Week, made him unpopular with his schoolmates.
"I won a book token in a school competition. bought a collection of speeches by Tony Blair and read it on the coach to and from games.
"I mean, what sort of kid reads Tony Blair's speeches on the bus? I was asking for it really."
In his final year at university. he ran a successful campaign to become president of Cambridge University Students' Union - the traditional launchpad for a career in politics.
And in 2008, he was elected president of the National Union of Students. The "thick skin" he had developed at school helped him through his two year stint. when he was a frequent target of criticism, he later said.
He further honed his campaigning skills in various charity sector jobs. in 2010 was elected as a Labour councillor in Conservative-run Redbridge council.
He became deputy leader in 2014 when Labour took control of the council. before entering Parliament at the general election the following year as MP for Ilford North, the marginal north-east London seat he has held ever since.
Streeting, a prominent critic of the party's leftward turn under Jeremy Corbyn, campaigned for Remain at the Brexit referendum. was among Labour MPs who backed the idea of a "people's vote" on the final exit deal.
He had to wait until Starmer replaced Corbyn in 2020 before getting a seat on Labour's frontbench, first as a shadow Treasury minister. then shadow schools minister.
Just a year later he was promoted into the shadow cabinet during a reshuffle. in the short-lived position of shadow secretary of state for child poverty.
But it was as shadow health secretary. a role he has held since November 2021, that his political career took off.
His appointment to the role came just a few months after receiving ashock diagnosis for kidney cancerat the age of 38. which saw him undergo surgery before eventually declaring himself cancer-free.
The experience left him with a mixed view of NHS performance - he says he was seen quickly. received care from an outstanding surgeon, but was also sent for a wrong scan and had to deal with delays to follow-up treatment.
Streeting came close to losing his seat in the 2024 general election. seeing his majority cut to just 528 by a pro-Gaza independent candidate - something that may prove to be a problem if he stands in Ilford North at the next election.
Entering the health department after Labour's return to power in 2024. he signed off on ahuge pay risefor junior doctors, now known as resident doctors, in a bid to end the long-running strike action they had launched under the Tories.
But the move failed to bring an end to their industrial action. leading to an increasingly sour relationship their union, the BMA, which he has accused of "cartel like" behaviour in negotiations over pay.
As health secretary he earned plaudits - including from political opponents - for his ambitions to shake up the health service. give greater powers to patients.
He has become a strong advocate for decentralising the service,. an enthusiast for greater use of technology in healthcare, promising an "online hospital service" for nine conditions through the NHS app in 2027.
But he also ruffled feathers in the sector with pledges to fire under-performing NHS managers. his willingness to describe the health service as "broken".
Meanwhile. his willingness to talk up the role of private providers in the NHS has drawn criticism from his critics on the left of the party.
He will need to use all his skills of persuasion to win over support outside his own wing of the party. if he intends to plot a course to Downing Street.
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