‘Keir Starmer is out of time to avoid wasting himself – his authority and respect is gone’
“Too much bad blood is already spilled – from the winter fuel cut to Mandelson – by a PM who haemorrhaged good will on Labour’s green benches and in the country”
Keir Starmer(Image: Peter Nicholls/PA Wire)
It’s over for Keir Starmer and he’s finished as Prime Minister.
Brutally sacrificing No10 chief of staff Morgan McSweeney won’t save him. Far too late for that. And an emperor dispensing with his Praetorian is left defenceless.
T&Cs apply, of course, yet short of World War Three erupting and people suddenly yelling “this wouldn’t be a mo for Downing Street musical chairs”, I don’t see how Starmer survives. His personal authority’s shot, gone. Respect too. And fear is draining away, with emboldened Labour MPs and Cabinet ministers openly contemplating who and what comes next.
He was probably a dead man walking before Peter Mandelson, but the PM’s calamitous misjudgment in sending the toxic operator to be our man in Washington hardens his fate.
READ MORE: Keir Starmer ‘appoints Morgan McSweeney’s deputies’ after resignationREAD MORE: Keir Starmer’s chief of staff Morgan McSweeney quits after Mandelson scandal
We may argue about whether Starmer’s end is unfair or fair. Similarly the date – my 20p is on for after Labour’s predicted kicking in May’s Welsh and Scottish national elections and English locals.
The exact “how” is similarly up in the air. Resignations in a Cabinet revolt or a formal challenge with 20% of Labour MPs naming a successor to trigger a formal ballot? And who would that successor be: Angela Rayner, Wes Streeting, Ed Miliband, Bridget Phillipson, Lou Haigh, Lucy Powell, Jonathan Reynolds or AN Other?
But not an Andy Burnham barred from rejoining Parliament.
All have strengths and weaknesses and when Labour is losing heavily in the polls, the mood is crystalising behind rolling the dice and gambling. The strategy paid off for the Tories when they replaced Margaret Thatcher with John Major then Theresa May with Boris Johnson, winning subsequent general elections. But the Conservative Party had three PMs in a matter of months in 2022 and Labour is traditionally less likely to devour PMs and regurgitate replacements.
Gordon Brown survived coup attempts in 2008, 2009 and early 2010. But Starmer isn’t Brown, a formidable politician. Starmer won’t, I feel, last 2026 and McSweeney’s defenestration doesn’t alter basic fundamentals.
Too much bad blood is already spilled – from the winter fuel cut to Mandelson – by a PM who haemorrhaged good will on Labour’s green benches and in the country. A party switching PMs is constitutional, though issues of legitimacy are created when only a general election confers popular acceptance.
Perhaps Starmer’s successor would enjoy a bounce, a fresh face selling the benefits and vision of a revived Labour government, while successfully ramming home the dangers of Tory rules, horrors of Reform, sogginess of Libs and risks of voting Greens.
A general election should be held six months after a new PM is billeted in No10. The risks are huge for Labour but the gravest, most reckless, risk would be doing nothing and sticking with what self-evidently isn’t working.
Abuser Donald has no right to trash us
Donald Trump was ordered by a US court to pay $5million (£3.6m) damages to a woman, E Jean Carroll, he sexually abused in a New York department store changing room then smeared before being elected US President for a second time a year later.
I, for one, am mightily relieved that this is highly unlikely to occur – I hope – in Britain where we hold our politicians to better account. That’s not to be complacent or pretend there isn’t lying, nest-feathering, corruption, sexual impropriety and bad behaviour this side of the Atlantic too.
But it is a reason to accept no lectures from the Trump administration and grasp why an unethical chancer such as Peter Mandelson was ill-fatedly considered the best person to deal with a White House transactional regime headed by thissordid charlatan.
Had Starmer taken the moral high ground he mightn’t be sinking in a cesspit. The Mandelson scandal is short-term gain producing long-term infamy.
Protecting the royals shows contempt for Epstein survivors
King Charles and late Queen Elizabeth mustn’t be allowed to escape any share of responsibility for sleazy Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and ghastly ex-wife Sarah Ferguson.
The current monarch would be grilled by MPs about what, if anything, he knew and his mother’s records would be scrutinised by Parliament if we lived in a vibrant democracy rather than a Disneyland of palaces and castles. Throwing a veil over The Firm which ponied up much, most or perhaps all the estimated £12million that kept Andrew out of a US court is feudal contempt for survivors and the great British public.
The PM’s rightly required to release everything on Mandelson’s appointment as US ambassador so why not Buck House on their Prince of Darkness? We deserve to discover whether they turned blind eyes, covered up or enabled a parasite who sent Jeffrey Epstein official reports of overseas trips as a trade envoy.
Limiting public appearances, stripping titles and gifting Andrew five-bedroom Marsh Farm in Norfolk is damage limitation.
