2) The Cabinet says go
Labour backbenchers and junior ministers are already venting frustration that they’re being left to agitate for Starmer’s ouster. They believe that it’s their senior colleagues in the Cabinet who should be telling him his time’s up.
There had been private conversations among some of the PM’s closest advisers that he should trigger a reshuffle in the wake of the election. But it would seem his lack of strength thwarted that idea.
In public, the Cabinet has rallied in support. In private, there’s consternation — and it would seem near-impossible for Starmer to survive being told by his most powerful ministers that enough is enough.
Energy Secretary Ed Miliband is seen as a king-maker for the soft-left faction that dominates the Labour Party. The former Labour leader, who resigned after he lost the 2015 election, wields particular power around the Cabinet table because he was one of Starmer’s earliest political champions.
His aides have only disputed in the mildest terms reports that Miliband told the PM last month he should consider setting out a departure schedule, with Miliband fearful a damaging leadership contest could be unleashed in the wake of the elections.
Now the carnage of losing more than 1,460 councillors in England, and control of the Welsh Senedd for the first time since its inception in 1999, is the PM’s reality.