Labour kicked out the cranks, while Rishi Sunak has put them around the Cabinet table, Wes Streeting said today.
The shadow health secretary turned his fire on the new PM as he declared the opposition is “ready to take him on”.
In a blistering speech, Mr Streeting argued as chancellor Mr Sunak “picked the pockets of working people as his first and last resort”.
“ Rishi Sunak can't tackle the cost of living crisis because he has fueled the cost of living crisis,” the Labour rising star said.
“So I don't care that Rishi Sunak was privately educated or that he's hugely wealthy.
“I do care that he's dangerously out of touch, making decisions about people whose lives he has never lived and whose lives he will never understand.
“Decisions that are making them poor, not richer.”
Mr Streeting criticised the PM’s ministerial appointments, which he contrasted with the changes made to the Labour Party under Keir Starmer ’s leadership.
“The cranks have been kicked out, [while] in the Conservative Party the cranks are sat around the Cabinet table,” he said.
On health care, Mr Streeting insisted he would be honest about the problems in the NHS.
“You won't hear me pretend that the NHS is great, that somehow the timeliness and quality of NHS care, which is currently appalling, is the envy of the world,” he said. “Because patients know it isn't true and NHS staff know it isn't true.”
Mr Streeting told a series of jokes during the speech at a lunch in Westminster. “This week, we went from the shortest serving prime minister in history to the shortest Prime Minister in history,” he said. “Rishi Sunak won't be hiding under the Cabinet table so much as he'll be standing under it.”
In a reference to Liz Truss ’s short time in No10, he added: “Honestly, 44 days - Keir Starmer has given conference speeches that lasted longer than that.”
