Doctors' pay Strike action could affect a Streeting bid for No 10

From Jeremy Hunt and Alan Johnson to Andy Burnham and Ken Clarke, politics is littered with ambitious former health secretaries who did not make it into No 10.

- Rowena Mason

From Jeremy Hunt and Alan Johnson to Andy Burnham and Ken Clarke, politics is littered with ambitious former health secretaries who did not make it into No 10. The aspirational current health secretary, Wes Streeting, is believed by colleagues to have his sights on one day replacing Keir Starmer in Downing Street.

However, the resident doctors' strike represents a moment of danger for the health secretary, with the medics pitching themselves against the government by demanding a return to the real-terms pay levels of 2008.

It would be a 25% salary increase on top of a 29% rise over the past three years, with the government refusing to open pay discussions and restricting any talks to negotiating on other benefits such as pensions.

Streeting has taken a robust approach - telling doctors: "If you go to war with us, you'll lose" - which on some levels appears in tune with the public mood.

Polling from More in Common shows that overall people do not back the doctors' strikes, and that feeling has turned further against increasing medics' pay over the past two weeks. Support for them dropped from -10% to -15% while the industrial action was going on.