LABOUR leadership hopeful Wes Streeting accused Rachel Reeves of having “no growth strategy” in WhatsApp messages with Lord Mandelson.
The Health Secretary attacked both Sir Keir Starmer and the Chancellor over their handling of the economy in a series of private exchanges.
The messages were released by Mr Streeting to the Electoral Dysfunction podcast despite an on-going police probe into the Mandelson controversy.
It comes after the Tories used an arcane parliamentary procedure known as a humble address to compel the government to release documents relating to his appointment as US Ambassador.
The disgraced Peer told Mr Streeting in March 2025: “The Government doesn’t have an economic philosophy which is then followed through in a programme of policies.”
He then replies: “No growth strategy at all.”
His comments came after the government delivered their first Budget, which included a national insuarance hike on business.
But Mr Streeting told Sky News yesterday that he was “happy to have been proven wrong” and Reeves “deserved credit” for improving the government.
He is seen as a leadership frontrunner alongside Angela Rayner if Sir Keir Starmer quits Downing Street.
In other messages, he also revealed he would be “toast” at the next election in his Ilford North seat.
He added: “There isn’t a clear answer to the question: why Labour?”
His warning came after Labour lost their safest ward in his area to a Gaza independent. But he insists that he will stand in the seat at the next election.
The messages published come between August 2024 and October last year with Streeting last night saying he had “nothing to hide”.
He also accused Israel in the stream of messages of committing war crimes and even acting like a rogue state.
Streeting said: “Morally and politically, I think we need to join France. Morally, because Israel is committing war crimes before our eyes.
“Their government talks the language of ethnic cleansing and I have met with our own medics out there who describe the most chilling and distressing scenes of calculated brutality against women and children.
“Politically, a Commons vote will be engineered in September on recognition and we will lose it if we’re not ahead of it.
“There are no circumstances in which people like me or Shabana [Mahmood] could abstain or vote against, for example.”
He added: “This is rogue state behaviour. Let them pay the price as pariahs with sanctions applied to the state, not just a few ministers.”
Despite being a leadership frontrunner, he has given his backing to the PM.
He said: “It has not been the best week for the government and that’s not just Keir Starmer; that’s all of us because we’re a team.
“I want him to come through it and I want him to set out the plan that people can get behind.”
Treasury sources last night pointed to six interest rate cuts and inflation falling faster than predicted, the second fastest growing economy in the G7 and beating economic forecasts set by the independent Budget watchdog.
