Wes Streeting is going to resign tomorrow and challenge Keir Starmer for the leadership. The news broke in the Times 45 minutes before the King’s speech. The Rickety Coup is back on…
Lots of gossip is flying around SW1. What happens next?
Bloomberg’s Alex Wickham hears Starmer will stand in the leadership election if Streeting challenges him. “I am certain he will stand”, according to one ally…
Given the ‘showdown’ meeting in Number 10 this morning lasted 16 minutes, the likelihood is Streeting marched in and told Starmer to quit or face a challenge. Starmer said bring it on…
Labour Whips told Sky News’ Jon Craig that they don’t believe Burnham actually has a seat lined up. Which means Wes is their public enemy number one…
Miliband is understood to have told Cabinet ministers he’d stand against Streeting if a contest is triggered before Burnham is in the Commons. Rayner’s star is fading and her tax affairs loom large, so if there’s to be a soft-left challenger to Streeting, Ed will need to move fast…
Starmer could face the mood music and set out a timetable for his departure. Government sources say tomorrow at midday is the likeliest time for this. Monday’s Labour Wars column brought you speculation from inside Downing Street that Starmer would in the end be forced to give up by either Wes standing or Cabinet stressing the point. Versions/threats of both have so far failed to persuade the PM to say he will go…
He could take no action against Streeting and wait for the Health Secretary to resign and draw first blood, in which case he would be breaking his oft-stated red line. Streeting promised that he would not be the one to trigger a leadership contest. It depends on whether No10 thinks that will damage Streeting’s numbers more…
One extravagant theory floating around this afternoon is that Starmer could sack Streeting today and even suspend him from the PLP for undermining the King’s Speech. He’d be ineligible for nomination to the leadership. The chaos and paralysis would keep Starmer in place for a while longer. That seems far-fetched. But anything can happen in The Rickety Coup…
Minutes before the King’s speech begins and during State Opening proceedings the Times reports:
Remember Ed Miliband reportedly told cabinet ministers he’d run against Streeting if a contest is triggered before Burnham can stand (Miliband denied this). Streeting could be gearing up to begin making moves after the King’s speech…
Team Burnham have been hit with rejection along their search for a seat for the King of the North. It’s never as easy as they make out…
Guido hears that Burnham’s operation approached former minister Josh Simons to ask for him to give up his Makerfield seat. They got hit with a flat no…
Burnham organisers – who count Deputy Labour leader Lucy Powell among them – are said to be bitter about the rejection. Makerfield in Greater Manchester is one of the safest Labour seats in the country and ticks all of Burnham’s wish list boxes. Simons has a current majority of 5,399…
Simons penned a Times column over the weekend calling for Starmer to go and for radical change. It contained some ambitious ideas of its own: “People are right to want the system torn apart.“ It looks like Simons believes he has more to contribute from within the Commons…
Burnham was in London yesterday to meet MPs after arriving in Euston station. Blue Labour supremo Dan Carden has also denied that he will give up his Liverpool Walton seat. So have other contenders Marie Rimmer, Charlotte Nichols, and Peter Dowd. Gossip points the finger at Navendu Mishra in Stockport. Westminster rumours continue to circulate over a potential job swap between ex-minister Jim McMahon and Burnham…
Burnham’s team have been tight-lipped so far on their hypothetical seat arrangements, though they have boasted that they can trigger the process for the Manchester Mayor to enter parliament as soon as today. The proof is in the pudding…
Streeting was in and out of No10 in 16 minutes for his meeting with Starmer before the King’s speech. Barely enough time for a coffee…
There is some bemusement among government sources that this Wes-Starmer meeting was briefed as an explosive showdown summit when the coup-blocking King’s Speech is on the same day. No action on truce day…
Yesterday night government sources were predicting midday Thursday for a possible resignation. This ain’t over…
Eleven Labour-affiliated unions – including GMB, Unite, and Unison – are expected to release a statement today saying the government “cannot continue on its current path” and predicting Starmer will have to resign before the next general election. Dialling up the pressure…
According to the Guardian, the statement will be released “at some point” later today. The draft reads:
“Labour’s affiliated unions have been clear that Labour cannot continue on its current path.
“Whilst we recognise progress has been made, such as aspects of the Employment Rights Act and the increase in the minimum wage, the results at the election last week were devastating.
“Labour is not doing enough to deliver the change that working people voted for at the general election. Our focus is on the fundamental change of direction on economic policy and political strategy that unions have been clear is needed, and not on the personalities and unfolding political drama in Westminster.”
“It’s clear that the prime minister will not lead Labour into the next election, and at some stage a plan will have to be put in place for the election of a new Leader.
“This is a point where the future of the party we founded will be debated and determined – and we are working closely as unions to shape a shared vision on policy, political strategy and economic policy that will reorient Labour back to working people, so Labour do what it was elected to do: govern in the interests of workers.”
Starmer staggers on for another day, but the rickety coup continues. Streeting has his ‘showdown’ meeting in Number 10 this morning…
A fourth minister has called for Starmer to resign. Zubir Ahmed was Health Innovation and Safety minister under Wes Streeting:
“Dear Prime Minister,
It is with a heavy heart that I write to you to resign from your government as Health Innovation and Safety Minister.
It has been the honour of my life to bring my twenty years of frontline experience as an NHS surgeon to government. In my time as a minister, I have been proud of delivering a life sciences sector that is now reputationally world class with turbocharged clinical trials delivering innovative life changing medicines to UK patients faster than ever before. I have also been proud to use my clinical experience to accelerate the digital transformation of our NHS and had been planning the rollout of the NHS online hospital later this year. And it has been truly humbling to start the work of correcting some of the wrongs suffered by those harmed by valproate and women harmed by pelvic mesh. I therefore truly wish I could have continued to finish the critical work that I started.But as I raise my gaze above the daily work of ministerial life, it is clear to see that whatever the magnitude of individual achievements and progress, they are now being dwarfed and undermined by a lack of values-driven leadership at the centre. It is clear from recent days, that the public across the UK has now irretrievably lost confidence in you as Prime Minister.
This was apparent in the recent Scottish Parliament elections where on door after door your name was specifically cited as the driving reason why Labour voters of 2024 would not vote for Scottish Labour in 2026. The noise created at the centre of the government you lead, inadvertently became the midwife for the delivery of an incompetent fifth term SNP government, and one which will now inflict more division and decay on my constituents of Glasgow South West. This is an outcome that is as intolerable as it was avoidable.
Throughout the entirety of my surgical career, I have been guided by the principles of precision, clarity, candour and above all else an aspiration for excellence. Those are the principles that I have attempted to bring to Parliament and to my ministerial office. And it is those principles that sadly lead me to conclude that your continuation in office is wholly untenable.
I will be forever grateful for your decency and tireless work in turning our party around, in imbibing in us all a sense of national duty before party. You once also said our work is urgent. I now ask you for the sake of that urgency and that national duty, to step aside and set a timetable for an expedient and orderly transition to new leadership that commands the confidence of our country.”
Ticking up…
Former leader of the SNP in Westminster Ian Blackford told Times Radio why he believes Nicola Sturgeon’s claim that she spent no time in the kitchen and therefore didn’t see any of her husband’s purchases:
“She doesn’t have a passion for cooking.”