'I'm diplomatically ducking the question. This is not a pitch or a job application'

It has been quite a year for Wes Streeting.

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The health secretary has abolished NHS England, gone to war with the British Medical Association (BMA), confronted a flu crisis and been given the all clear after treatment for kidney cancer.One hospital chief executive says the Department of Health is like "Game of Thrones without the dragons" because Streeting is always fighting on so many fronts.

To top it all, last month he was the target of what he calls a "bizarre drive-by" engineered by Keir Starmer's allies who accused him of plotting against the prime minister. The attempted political assassination backfired spectacularly and left Streeting stronger and Starmer weaker than ever. "It's water under the bridge," he says. But the health secretary is now the person most mentioned by MPs when they are discussing who will be the next Labour leader.

Our walk will take us through Hainault Forest, an ancient woodland on the border of London and Essex. This is Streeting's "happy place", where he goes to "decompress" from the stresses of politics. "I often come here with Joe [Dancey, his fiancé, until recently Labour's director of communications] but I also quite enjoy the occasional solitary walk as well."

We meet by the wetlands, where Canada geese are drinking from puddles next to a flock of black-headed gulls. The gleaming towers of Canary Wharf and the City of London are visible in the distance, beyond the tower blocks that surround the country park. "It reminds me of the estate I grew up on in Stepney," Streeting says. "You're sandwiched between two of the richest places on earth in an area of extremely high levels of child poverty." We set off around the lake towards the forest on a cold, crisp winter's day. "Throughout the year you see it change. In autumn it's beautiful, in summer it's glorious. When we had deep snow, I spent a good few hours wading through it."