Are the knives out for Keir Starmer?

A flurry of late-night media briefings have triggered a full blown crisis for Keir Starmer. Allies of the Prime Minister sought to fire a pre-emptive strike in the Times and to the BBC, suggesting that he would fight any challenge to his leadership after the Budget. The Guardian subsequently reported that Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, has 50 frontbenchers willing to resign if the Budget goes badly and Starmer does not go. Various ministers, officials and allies are quoted – suggesting a degree of co-ordination, rather than just one rogue operator sounding off.

Streeting, who was down last night to do this morning’s media round, was furious at both the substance and timing of these stories. He has told the BBC today that it’s ‘categorically untrue’ that he’s plotting a coup against Starmer. ‘Whoever has been briefing this has been watching too much Celebrity Traitors.’ On Sky, he said that ‘trying to kneecap one of your own team’ is ‘self-defeating and self-destructive behaviour.’ He added, ‘I also think whoever did this doesn’t speak for the Prime Minister. I speak for the Prime Minister.’

It was a series of confident performances that demonstrated Streeting’s guts and humour: if the No. 10 briefing was designed to flush him out, it appears to have backfired somewhat. ‘Wes is smarter than Andy [Burnham]’, says a Labour aide. Another says ‘I hope the people in No. 10 doing the briefing overnight understand that this has strengthened Streeting’s position – who has looked gracious and commanding so far today – and has weakened the Prime Minister’s. The PM is clearly being advised terribly.’

The briefings have prompted anger at every level of government. Accusations are now flying around that No. 10 has ‘gone into full bunker mode’ and ‘briefing against their own side’. Some MPs loyal to Starmer are still insisting that they had real evidence of Streeting’s allies being on manoeuvres. But for others, there is bafflement and bemusement. ‘The last 24 hours will only increase talk of a challenge’, says one aide. ‘Would not rule it out’, says a new MP, ‘or underestimate how pissed off everyone is.’ The debacle comes just hours before Starmer must face PMQs, with Kemi Badenoch now likely to lead on the theme of Labour chaos. How many backbenchers will be cheering him on?

While the drama of politics obsesses Westminster, the dire economic situation looms over the City. A number of Starmer’s team argue that the leadership speculation is damaging government bond prices, with investors fearing that the Prime Minister and Rachel Reeves are set to be ousted. This is something that Kitty Usher, the ex-Treasury Minister, told Labour special advisers and MPs in a presentation earlier this week. Fluctuations are likely to be watched closely over the coming weeks, as Reeves continues to lay the groundwork for another massive tax-raising Budget.

Starmer’s favourite predecessor is Harold Wilson – another Labour PM bedevilled by plots or paranoia himself. At the height of leadership speculation, Wilson once declared, ‘I know what is going on – I am going on.’ But the decision to go all guns blazing two weeks before a make-or-break Budget has left many within the Labour party asking if either point is true about Starmer and his increasingly beleaguered operation.