Key events
Keir Starmer to face crucial cabinet meeting as ministers and MPs urge him to resign
Good morning. “Stories beat spreadsheets,” Keir Starmer declared in his speech yesterday. But yesterday was a day when the spreadsheets had the upper hand. Most news organisations were using them to keep a track of Labour MPs who were coming out and calling for Starmer’s resignation and, after his speech in the morning, the numbers started to escalate. Here is the LabourList one; by the end of last night they were on 77.
The sort of names on the spreadsheets changed too. Initially it was mostly leftwingers calling for the PM to go, with the Andy Burnham supporters stressing the need for a timetable for an orderly transition (ie – a slow process, allowing Burnham to win a byelection before a leadership contest). But in the afternoon government loyalists, and some prominent Wes Streeting supporters, started speaking out. And by early evening parliamentary private secretaries (technically, people on the government “payroll”) were joining in too.
And now some cabinet ministers are starting to tell Starmer, privately, that he needs to go. Here is our overnight story by Pippa Crerar and Jessica Elgot.
And here is an extract.
The Guardian understands that two senior cabinet ministers – Yvette Cooper, the foreign secretary, and Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary – told the prime minister he should oversee an orderly transition of power after crushing election defeats risked ringing the death knell on his premiership.
At least two others – believed to be John Healey and David Lammy – discussed with Starmer how they should take a “responsible, dignified, orderly” approach to what might follow. Several others – including Richard Hermer and Steve Reed – were defiant, urging him to fight on.
The cabinet is meeting this morning, at 9am or soon after. Starmer said yesterday he would fight any bid to force him out, and some of his allies are urging him to stay. But his position looks perilous; it is possible that before the end of the day he may have announced a plan to stand down.
We will be focusing on this throughout the day, although some other politics may get a mention.
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