“Operation Save Starmer” — Burnham Not “Nailed On”; Streeting Failed to Get Numbers
Inside Downing Street, Starmer’s allies now believe they can “Keep Keir In”. On Starmer’s reckoning, as one ally put it, Burnham is far from “nailed on” in Makerfield; and Wes Streeting will have a struggle to get back into the leadership race on favourable terms, having resigned from cabinet only to fail to secure “the numbers”. The Prime Minister broke this week with his aloof communications style by walking across Downing Street to chat directly to the press, and joked publicly about his tongue slip in the Commons about a “North Korea trade deal” (he meant South Korea).
Starmer believes that those who are pressing for him to go — Ed Miliband (energy secretary), Shabana Mahmood (home secretary), Yvette Cooper (foreign secretary) and Wes Streeting — have underestimated his resilience. His allies say Streeting and Miliband hoped that they could “bully” the Prime Minister into setting out a timeline for his departure without going over the top with the 81 Labour MPs needed to trigger a leadership contest. They conspicuously failed to do so. New figures show the economy growing above expectations, inflation has slowed to 2.8% — the lowest level in over a year — and Reeves’s preferred environment of lower interest rates to protect mortgage holders is likely to remain the Bank of England’s stance with unemployment beginning to rise.