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…
Statement by Paul Dacre, Editor-in-Chief of Associated Newspapers Limited, following Harry’s loss in court today:
“Prince Harry wrote a sad book which boasted about his killing of 25 Taliban, his drug-taking and, in cringe-making detail, how he lost his virginity. There isn’t a laundry in the cosmos big enough to wash all the dirty linen he has aired about his own family. For him, to complain about HIS privacy being invaded takes, not just the biscuit, but the whole tin. Poor Harry. I feel sorry for the way a confused and angry young man has been drawn into this case. The bitter irony is that his mother, Diana, liked the Mail. We were her paper. We took her side in her acrimonious break up with Charles. She and I would speak and meet. The Mail’s superb royal reporter was her friend and confidante. The truth is that this trumped-up action – which has cost well over £50 million and wasted a huge amount of valuable court time – should never have been brought to trial. That it did, raises profoundly disturbing questions about the conduct of elements of the legal profession. Today’s verdict is not just a victory for Associated’s magnificent journalists – several of whom have had a terrible toll imposed on their health and lives – but a free press generally. Make no mistake. This was a conspiracy, supported by Hacked Off, to destroy a paper. Financed by the orgy-loving, racist Max Mosley and involving the actor Hugh Grant, it was also a sinister bid to resuscitate Leveson Two and impose statutory regulation on the press which, even now, is rearing its ugly head in Labour’s Media Green Paper.”