Angela Rayner is back on sly manoeuvres as Starmer slumps |
It’s spin-the-wheel and try to become the next Labour leader season. Pre-Christmas fears of impending election failure leave Labour MPs looking to the May 2026 local elections in dread.
That has amplified mutterings that Keir Starmer may not be in Downing Street long enough to do his next TikTok switching on the tree lights. The first problem is the stubbornly negative ratings for Starmer, despite sterling efforts to “re-introduce” the Prime Minister to the public since Labour’s party conference on more personal terms. Try as Starmer might to put across a human face behind the earnest lawyer-turned-politician, the public has not found a connection. Nor has the Government’s wider offer excited or convinced either.
Either voters see it as unconnected to their lives or shrug that this lot are as chaotic as the Conservatives they replaced. According to a large Ipos poll, 71 per cent of those sampled said the country was not on the right track. And a nearly third blamed this government, rather than the last one.
Hardly surprising then, that the ministerial corps de ballet fancy their chances of nabbing a starring role. A trio of these hopefuls are spending December sharpening their profiles and modus operandi for replacing Starmer. There are others, too.
Andy Burnham is