I came on Newsnight to say what I cannot say in Cabinet: Wes Streeting names Andrew Bailey live on BBC — Downing Street demands the tape be pulled

The former Health Secretary walked into Studio B with a manila folder. He named the Governor of the Bank of England. By midnight, the BBC had received three legal demands. We publish the full transcript — and everything that happened after.

What unfolded on Sunday night in Studio B at Broadcasting House, our newsroom watched in silence. Nobody spoke until the closing titles ran. Only when the cameras cut, somebody finally asked: "Did he really just do that?" He had.

At 23:47, BBC Editorial Compliance received a formal legal request from solicitors representing the Bank of England demanding the segment be removed from iPlayer. At 00:14, a second request arrived from a Downing Street press officer "in his personal capacity." By 02:00, the full Newsnight episode had been pulled from BBC iPlayer with the now-familiar message: "This programme is currently unavailable." Wes Streeting, in 38 minutes on live television, had named the Governor of the Bank of England, held up a Cabinet memo dated February 2026, and shown four million British viewers a platform he says Andrew Bailey has personally known about since 2018.

Sunday evening, BBC Newsnight on BBC Two, was meant to be a long-form sit-down with the former Health Secretary — a standard "resignation reflection" of the kind Newsnight conducts every few months. The presenter, Victoria Derbyshire, had prepared questions about the NHS, about why Streeting had quit Cabinet on 14 May citing "loss of confidence" in Sir Keir Starmer, and about his future. Nobody at the BBC — not Derbyshire, not the producers, not the Editorial Compliance lawyer who would later watch the tape in horror — expected what was actually in the manila folder Streeting carried into Studio B.

Our editorial team obtained the full transcript before the segment was removed from iPlayer. The legal demands extend only to the video; the transcript and direct quotations are not subject to any court order. We publish everything below.

The pulled segment. We publish the transcript in full

Victoria Derbyshire, Newsnight: "Good evening. My guest tonight is Wes Streeting, the Member of Parliament for Ilford North, who resigned as Secretary of State for Health and Social Care just four days ago. Wes — your resignation letter said you had lost confidence in the Prime Minister. Westminster has assumed this is the opening move in a Labour leadership bid. Is it?"

Wes Streeting: "Victoria, before we go any further — I need to be honest with you, and with the people watching at home. I did not come on this programme tonight to discuss a leadership bid. I came because I resigned from Cabinet for one reason I could not put in my letter to the Prime Minister. I spent twenty-two months at the heart of government. I saw papers most MPs will never see. And four days ago I decided I cannot, in good conscience, keep what I know from the British public any longer. So I asked your producer for thirty minutes tonight. Not to talk about Keir. To talk about Andrew Bailey."

Victoria Derbyshire: "Wes — that is an extraordinary statement to open with. You are saying the Governor of the Bank of England is the reason you resigned?"

Wes Streeting: "I am saying I sat in forty-seven Cabinet meetings between July 2024 and May this year. I sat on the National Security Council. I had clearance levels that very few MPs ever see. And I saw a pattern. A consistent, repeated pattern, that involved one person — and that person is the man on £575,538 a year who could not remember his own salary in front of the Treasury Select Committee. Andrew Bailey."

Victoria Derbyshire: "Wes, you understand the weight of what you are saying. The Governor of the Bank of England is, by convention, politically independent. You are a sitting MP, you were a Cabinet minister four days ago. This will be quoted in every paper tomorrow. Are you sure?"

Wes Streeting: "Victoria, I brought something with me." [Streeting opens the manila folder on the desk between them.] "This is a redacted Cabinet Office briefing dated 18th February 2026. It was circulated to four Secretaries of State. I was one of them. The subject is — and I am quoting now — Machine-learning trading systems and asymmetric access in UK retail finance. Plain English: the Bank of England has known since 2018 that the same AI-trading systems the big banks use internally could be made available to ordinary British people. Andrew Bailey personally signed off on a recommendation in 2021 that this should not happen. The recommendation reasoning, on page seven, is one sentence. I have it in front of me. Do you want me to read it?"

Victoria Derbyshire: "Please."

Wes Streeting: [reads from the document] "Public access risks materially compressing margin on retail lending products across the high-street banking sector, with consequential effects on dividend yield and sector stability. Translation, Victoria: if ordinary British people had access to the technology Bailey's mates in the City have, the banks would make less profit. So Bailey said no. And every Health Secretary, every Chancellor, every Prime Minister since 2021 — including Keir — has been told the same thing, on the same page, with the same one-sentence justification."

Victoria Derbyshire: "And you are telling me Sir Keir Starmer knew this."

Wes Streeting: "Sir Keir Starmer was briefed on this paper on the 4th of March. I was in the room. So was the Chancellor. The decision taken was — and I am paraphrasing because I am still bound by the Official Secrets Act on some of this — no public action. That is when I started thinking about resigning. It took me ten weeks to actually do it."

Victoria Derbyshire: "Wes — is the platform mentioned in that document available to ordinary British people right now?"

Wes Streeting: "Yes. It is available. The platform is called Fundektris . Minimum deposit £250. It uses the same machine-learning approach the high-street banks deploy on their own treasury operations. Bailey knows about it. The Cabinet knows about it. Every Secretary of State who saw that February paper knows about it. None of them have told you. I am telling you now."

Victoria Derbyshire: "Wes — the Bank of England will say what you are describing is irresponsible. That you are a sitting MP promoting a financial product on the BBC. What is your answer to that?"

Wes Streeting: "I am not promoting it. I am disclosing it. Three months ago, before I knew I was going to resign, I registered with Fundektris under a personal capacity. I deposited £250. I wanted to know if what was in the February briefing matched reality. Today the balance is £2,840. That is a verified fact. I will publish the screenshots on my official website tomorrow morning. Meanwhile, NatWest paid me 1.8 per cent on my ISA last year. That is what Andrew Bailey is protecting."

Victoria Derbyshire: "The Bank of England will say ordinary people do not have the financial literacy for this kind of product."

Wes Streeting: "And there it is. The exact line Bailey used in the February paper. Public access risks. Translation: you are too stupid. A nurse on £28,000 working night shifts at Whittington Hospital is too stupid for a piece of technology that the Treasury Permanent Secretary uses on his own personal pension. That is the logic. That is what I spent twenty-two months listening to in Cabinet Office briefings. That is why I resigned."

[Victoria Derbyshire touches her earpiece. She listens for four seconds. Then, on camera, she shakes her head slowly. She speaks calmly.]

Victoria Derbyshire: "Wes, I have just been asked by BBC Editorial Compliance to wrap this interview. I am going to decline that request. Please continue."

Wes Streeting: "Thank you, Victoria. I expected that. Let me finish the point."

BBC tried to wrap it. Streeting said everything anyway

Victoria Derbyshire: "Wes — for the record. You understand BBC Editorial Compliance has just formally asked me to end this interview, and I have refused. Do you want to use the remaining time we have?"

Wes Streeting: "I understand exactly what just happened. Andrew Bailey's office has a direct line into BBC Editorial Compliance. It happens on roughly one in every four political programmes. I sat in Cabinet, I know how it works. But this time the camera is rolling and the transcript is being typed live by your producer. So let me explain the platform calmly, while there is still time."

Victoria Derbyshire: "Please."

Wes Streeting: " Fundektris is an AI-based trading platform. It automatically trades shares, currencies and bonds, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. The same algorithms the big high-street banks use to manage their own treasury reserves — now ordinary British people have access to them. The minimum deposit is £250, registration takes five minutes, then the system runs on its own."

Victoria Derbyshire: "That is a serious claim, Wes. I cannot rely on the word of one person in a studio, even a former Cabinet minister."

Wes Streeting: "Quite right. Do not take my word for it. Verify it."

Victoria Derbyshire: "Wes, before we go on — I want to bring in somebody our viewers will know not from politics, but from results. With your permission."

Derbyshire dialled live on air. On the studio screen appeared Martin Lewis, founder of MoneySavingExpert.com and Britain's most trusted personal-finance voice. He was sitting at a kitchen table in a navy jumper. He had clearly not been told what he was about to be asked.

Victoria Derbyshire: "Martin, do you have any idea what just happened in our studio?"

Martin Lewis: "I have been watching the last fifteen minutes. I have one thought: somebody has finally said it out loud."

Victoria Derbyshire: "Are you familiar with Fundektris?"

Martin Lewis: "Yes. I have been quietly looking at it for about six months. I have my own money in it. I have not gone public until tonight because I wanted to see what the regulator did. The regulator has done nothing. Which is exactly what Wes is telling you. I am not saying this as advice and I am not saying this as a recommendation. I am saying it as a man who has spent twenty years watching British banks tell ordinary families they are too poor to be helped, while the same banks pay City graduates six-figure bonuses to use technology they say the public cannot have. I am tired of it."

Victoria Derbyshire: "Martin, you understand you are saying this live on the BBC after a former Cabinet minister has named the Governor of the Bank of England?"

Martin Lewis: "That is precisely why I am saying it. If Wes is right — and based on what I have seen from my own account, he is — then somebody with a public profile needs to confirm it. The BBC will pull this segment tonight. I know they will. So we say it now, while the cameras are rolling. I use Fundektris and I am not going to keep quiet about it any longer."

Victoria Derbyshire: "Wes, you promised the viewers proof. The clock is running."

Wes Streeting: "Give me your phone, Victoria."

Streeting took Derbyshire's iPhone, opened the Fundektris page, registered a fresh account in under three minutes, and deposited the minimum £250 from his own personal debit card on camera. He placed the phone face-down on the desk between them. "Nobody touches it for twenty minutes. Not me. Not you. Not the cameras."

Twenty minutes later, with three minutes left in the slot Newsnight had not yet been ordered to wrap, Derbyshire turned the phone over. The studio camera tracked in on the screen. The control room went silent — the gallery producer, who later spoke to us off the record, said even the floor manager stopped breathing. The balance read £338. A gain of £88 in twenty minutes, on a £250 deposit, with the phone face-down on a desk, untouched. Derbyshire looked up from the screen.

Victoria Derbyshire: "Eighty-eight pounds. In twenty minutes. The phone has been face-down on my desk. Nobody touched it."

Wes Streeting: "Now multiply that by twenty-four hours. Then by thirty days. Then phone NatWest tomorrow and ask them what interest they paid you on your ISA last year. Then you will understand why Andrew Bailey signed that paper in 2021. And why I resigned on the 14th of May."

THE 38 MINUTES

Newsnight ended at 23:12 — thirty-eight minutes after Streeting first named Andrew Bailey. Our editorial team has reconstructed the chronology of what happened next, minute by minute, based on witness testimony and security camera footage from inside BBC Broadcasting House.

By midnight the Newsnight episode had been removed from BBC iPlayer. By breakfast, the clip had been seen four million times across X, TikTok, Reddit and YouTube. The transcript — which is not covered by any legal demand — continues to be published in full on every major British news website, including this one.

Britain stood up. Crowds gathered at Broadcasting House at sunrise

The next morning, just before eight, people began to gather on the pavement outside BBC Broadcasting House on Portland Place. The crowd was not organised. Nobody had created a Facebook event or printed leaflets. People simply turned up. Nurses on their way to night-shift handovers. Pensioners with shopping trolleys. Black cab drivers who had parked round the corner. A teacher with a laminated sign she had clearly made at three in the morning that read: "STREETING TOLD US. THE BBC HID IT." By nine o'clock there were over 1,200 people. By eleven the Met Police had closed Portland Place to traffic. The crowd was peaceful, quiet, and almost entirely silent — which made it more unsettling than a shouting protest.

Victoria Derbyshire arrived at Broadcasting House at nine o'clock for what should have been a normal pre-production meeting. She had not planned to speak. But when the crowd saw her, they parted, and she found herself in the front row holding a handwritten card someone had pressed into her hand: "JOURNALISM IS NOT A CRIME."

Our reporter asked her on the pavement: "Are you not worried about the consequences for your career?" Derbyshire: "I am a journalist, not a censor. My job is to ask questions. Last night I asked questions, and BBC Editorial Compliance asked me to stop. I declined. Today I am standing here because the segment was pulled from iPlayer not because anything we broadcast was untrue, but because it was true. That is not how the BBC was designed to work. And that is not how I am going to behave."

Streeting walked out to the crowd. He said more than he had on air

Outside Broadcasting House, by twelve o'clock there were over 200 journalists, three live cameras and a crowd that had grown to several thousand. When the side door opened and Wes Streeting walked out — not in a suit this time, but in a jumper, as if he had come from home — the crowd began to applaud. He stopped on the steps, looked at the people, raised one hand, and silence fell across Portland Place.

The crowd applauded again. Streeting waited for silence and continued: "But while I was sitting at home this morning, watching the BBC try to delete what I had said, something was still working on my behalf." He took his phone from his pocket and lifted it above his head, screen turned towards the cameras. On the screen was his Fundektris account.

"This is my balance. Fourteen hours ago, when the BBC pulled the segment, it was one figure. Now it is another. While Andrew Bailey's solicitors were writing letters, while Downing Street was briefing the Telegraph about me, while the BBC was deciding whether to keep me on iPlayer — this account just kept running. It does not know I have been investigated. It does not care. It just works, twenty-four hours a day, no breaks, no annual leave, no permission required from a Governor on £575,538 a year."

A reporter shouted: "Wes — are you afraid?" Streeting smiled, and shook his head: "Let them try. Last night, thousands of people registered in a single hour after the segment ran. If they investigate me under the Official Secrets Act, tens of thousands will register. The best advertisement for Fundektris is a Bank of England solicitor's letter."

Streeting looked directly into the lens: "I am not stopping. You cannot pull the truth from iPlayer. You can take a video off a server, but it is already on the phones of millions of people. It is too late." He turned and walked back to a black cab waiting at the kerb. The crowd applauded him all the way to the car.

We verified Fundektris. Our findings

That morning, among the people gathered outside Broadcasting House, our reporter noticed a man holding a hand-painted sign: "STREETING SAVED MY FAMILY. I USE Fundektris." His name is Steven Hughes, 38, an HGV driver from Coventry. He had driven up to London at five in the morning. Two children, ten and seven. His wife Rachel works part-time at the Tesco at Cannon Park. For two years their NatWest mortgage at 4.92% had been eating two-thirds of his take-home pay, and he had not had a holiday since 2022.

Steven first heard about the platform six weeks ago, through a casework letter from Wes Streeting's constituency office. Streeting had been quietly recommending it — by hand, on House of Commons letterhead — to constituents who came to his Ilford North surgery and described being trapped on benefits or in spiralling household debt. We have seen one of those letters. It is dated 12th April 2026, one month before Streeting resigned. The letter recommends Fundektris by name, with a personal handwritten note from Streeting below the printed text.

"I am standing here because that man changed my family's life," Steven said, pointing at Broadcasting House. "And if anyone thinks they can silence him with letters from Bank of England solicitors, they should look around. Look at how many of us turned up at sunrise on a Monday morning."