John Healey has criticised Labour figures jockeying to become prime minister in a politicised speech in which he said the party\u2019s \u201cvery credibility\u201c in government was at stake if the infighting deepened.<\/p>\n
The defence secretary, a Keir Starmer loyalist, said the party had turned in on itself since the May elections in what appeared to be direct criticism of Andy Burnham, Wes Streeting<\/a> and even the junior defence minister Al Carns.<\/p>\n Arguing that \u201cthese are serious times\u201d, Healey \u2013 who was also a minister under Gordon Brown \u2013 said Labour<\/a> had to demonstrate how it would meet the moment while Russia continued to attack Ukraine and \u201ccrisis after crisis\u201d hit British families\u2019 incomes.<\/p>\n \u201cWe must not throw away so lightly the power we were given,\u201d he said, contrasting his personal style with those hoping to oust the beleaguered Starmer as prime minister.<\/p>\n \u201cPolitics to me is not about the individual. I don\u2019t much care about photo opportunities or PR firms. People will not forgive us if they think we\u2019re more concerned about ourselves than we are about them,\u201d he said at a speech to the Good Growth Foundation.<\/p>\n \u201cRight now, the very credibility of Labour in government is at stake,\u201d he said. \u201cWe must get serious. It\u2019s not about us, not about the insiders of politics, it\u2019s about the interests of the country.\u201d<\/p>\n He did not mention others by name, but it was clear whom he was referring to. Allies said his speech was intended to be \u201ca hard message\u201d to the party, which should be seeking to get on with government.<\/p>\n Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, who is standing for the newly vacant seat of Makerfield<\/a>, has been pictured jogging at least twice since he indicated he wanted to return to Westminster and run to be prime minister.<\/p>\n Streeting resigned as health secretary last week in the hope of sparking a leadership contest, complaining that \u201cwhere we need vision, we have a vacuum\u201d. His initial bid stalled as it became clear he had little prospect of winning a contest.<\/p>\n Carns, a former special forces soldier, has claimed thousands of pounds of parliamentary expenses<\/a> to produce promotional videos, including one showing him doing pull-ups at a fire station in competition with a firefighter.<\/p>\n Healey said defence spending had grown under Labour and would rise to 3.5% of GDP by 2035. The Ministry of Defence \u201cestimates this means over half a million Brits will work for a defence firm in a decade\u2019s time\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n Future military spending would need to work \u201conce for national security and once for British industry,\u201d he said, setting a new guideline and arguing that defence jobs were skilled, unionised and offered an average salary of \u00a357,000.<\/p>\n Despite the pledge, however, no date was announced for the publication of the long delayed defence investment plan, which has been the subject of a financial battle with the Treasury. Covering all critical military programmes, it remains up to \u00a318bn overspent.<\/p>\n Healey promised the plan was coming soon, but said it had to be properly budgeted for. \u201cCountries that cannot pay their way, cannot defend themselves,\u201d he said, justifying the need to boost economic growth to pay for new arms.<\/p>\n He also sought to distinguish Labour\u2019s approach from its nearest political rivals. He accused Reform of being supported by \u201cpro-Russian cronies and crypto billionaires\u201d, the latter a reference to Christopher Harborne, who donated \u00a35m to Nigel Farage<\/a> before he stood at the general election.<\/p>\n At the same time, he accused the Greens, who made sweeping gains from Labour in inner London in the local elections of wanting \u201cto shut down the defence industry\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"John Healey has criticised Labour figures jockeying to become prime minister in a politicised speech in which he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":593267,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-593266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=593266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593266\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/593267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=593266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=593266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=593266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}