JASON GROVES: The Cabinet’s belated – and albeit unconvincing – present of loyalty has introduced Starmer a keep of execution solely. All it will take is a puff of wind to blow him over now…

The Cabinet has stepped back from the brink. After 24 hours furiously debating the Prime Minister’s future in private, Keir Starmer’s most senior colleagues have backed him to stay on. For now.

It was touch and go. For hours on Sunday night and Monday morning, members of the Cabinet flatly refused requests from No 10 to publicly back the PM, leaving Sir Keir to sweat in his Downing Street bunker.

Instead, ministers discussed privately whether to force him out and what to do if Sir Keir decided to throw in the towel at short notice – and who they might ask to serve as an interim PM.

At lunchtime on Monday, Downing Street claimed that the PM was ‘getting on with the job with the support of the Cabinet’.

In a speech to staff he is even said to have been ‘upbeat’. But officials were unable to point to a single supportive comment from any member of the Cabinet in the previous 24 hours.

The Cabinet’s hand was finally forced by news from north of the border. When Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar announced an emergency press conference at 2.30pm, it quickly became clear he was going to call on the PM to resign.

The move forced them to make a snap decision on whether to stick with Sir Keir or risk tumbling into a chaotic leadership contest for which none of the main candidates are truly ready.

Keir Starmer leaving No 10 last night… for now his position appears safe, writes Jason Groves

The Cabinet’s hand was finally forced by news from north of the border suggesting Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar was about to call for Sir Keir’s resignation

One minute before Mr Sarwar was due to get to his feet in Glasgow, the Deputy PM David Lammy finally broke the Cabinet’s silence, taking to X to urge colleagues to ‘support the Prime Minister’.

In the following hour, every single member of the Cabinet, who had had so little supportive to say for so long, piled in behind him to voice their backing for the Dear Leader.

Mr Sarwar’s criticisms were devastating – all the more so as they came from a long-time ally of Sir Keir. There had been, he said, ‘too many mistakes’ in No 10. ‘I have to be honest about failure wherever I see it,’ he said. ‘The distraction has to end, the leadership has to change.’

If one or two senior ministers had followed suit – as Mr Sarwar had suggested they might – Sir Keir’s troubled premiership would have been over.

But no one is fully ready for a leadership contest that threatens to be chaotic.

Andy Burnham remains marooned in Manchester, unable to stand.

Angela Rayner is on manoeuvres – yesterday it emerged she has already set up a ‘Rayner for leader website’. But she still has an HMRC investigation hanging over her and would potentially be asking Labour to replace one scandal-ridden PM with another.

Allies of Wes Streeting fret that his long friendship with Peter Mandelson could derail his leadership campaign in an atmosphere where the disgraced peer is totally toxic. Yesterday, he was offering to show Labour MPs his messages to Lord Mandelson to prove they are innocuous. But he could use more time for the Mandelson scandal to subside.

Other hopefuls such as Ed Miliband, deputy Labour leader Lucy Powell and Home Office minister Jess Phillips are now eyeing their chances. Even the unknown armed forces minister Al Carns, who has been in politics for less than two years, has let it be known that he fancies a shot at the job.

The Cabinet took the collective view yesterday that plunging the party into an unpredictable leadership contest now could be disastrous, particularly with vital local elections round the corner in May.

But Sir Keir’s survival prospects remain dire. On Sunday, his talismanic chief of staff Morgan McSweeney left his side for the first time since he became Labour leader six years ago.

On Monday, morning his communications chief Tim Allan – the fourth person to hold the role in 18 months – followed him out of No 10’s famous black door.

This least political of prime ministers suddenly has no-one left to tell him what to think or what to say.

He remains engulfed by criticism of his disastrous decision to appoint Lord Mandelson as US ambassador.

And there is no escape on the horizon. Parliament has ordered the release of tens of thousands of documents surrounding the decision, along with messages exchanged with Lord Mandelson by his ministers and senior aides.

Whitehall sources say it will take weeks or even months before the documents are all in the public domain – prolonging the agony for a PM who wants nothing more than to consign his disgraced former friend to history.

As the events of Monday clearly demonstrated, Sir Keir’s future is no longer entirely within his own hands.

The Cabinet’s belated – and frankly unconvincing – show of loyalty has brought him a stay of execution.

But it could easily be withdrawn when the circumstances are better suited for a leadership contest, such as after the local elections in May.

All it would take is a puff of wind to blow the PM over now. And he is riding through a storm.