Sir Keir Starmer on Tuesday went through the motions of defending his handling of the Peter Mandelson scandal, but the mood around the cabinet table — the averted eyes, the virtual silence — pointed to a prime minister in serious political trouble.
Starmer repeated his assertion that he had been badly let down by the Foreign Office, which had failed to stop him doing what he wanted to do: appoint the scandal-prone Mandelson to the highest-profile job in British diplomacy.
One person briefed on the cabinet meeting said there was little sympathy for Starmer and his decision to make Mandelson Britain’s ambassador to the US. “People had their heads down, looking at the desk. He was met in virtual silence,” they added.
Shortly afterwards Kemi Badenoch, Conservative leader, mounted a scathing attack in the House of Commons, but more ominous for the prime minister was the lack of covering fire coming from the Labour benches.
“It is clear to the public that he is failing at the job,” Badenoch said. “It is clear to civil servants that he is throwing them under the bus, and it is clear to members across this House that he is not fit to lead.”
One Labour official said: “We saw this before when Boris Johnson was reaching the end as prime minister — the same silence on the Tory benches.” Badenoch goaded Labour MPs over their failure to interrupt her.
After another bleak day at Westminster for Starmer, attention was again turning to how long he could hang on, especially as the political threats start to pile up.
The UK economy has been hit by the Iran war. Potentially dangerous elections in England, Scotland and Wales are looming on May 7. And the Mandelson saga still has many weeks to run, with thousands of documents relating to his appointment as ambassador still to be released.
Starmer has accepted responsibility for appointing Mandelson and it is his own judgment which most concerns Labour MPs.
John McTernan, Tony Blair’s former political director, said: “It’s a political crime — why appoint Peter Mandelson under any circumstances? Staying in Epstein’s house while he was in prison disqualifies you from public office.”
Ed Miliband, energy secretary, added to the criticism, claiming he and David Lammy, deputy prime minister, knew in advance that Mandelson’s appointment could “blow up”. He told Sky News: “I steered well clear of Peter Mandelson when I became Labour leader in 2010.”
Sir Olly Robbins, the Foreign Office permanent under-secretary sacked by Starmer for failing to raise the alarm about Mandelson’s failed vetting process, fuelled Labour unease with his appearance before MPs on Tuesday. He claimed that Number 10 put pressure on him to wave the appointment through and was “dismissive” of the vetting process.
Some Labour strategists fear Badenoch might table a “contempt motion” in the Commons — used by Starmer in opposition to undermine Johnson — testing whether Labour MPs will endorse the prime minister’s handling of the Mandelson affair.
Meanwhile some members of the Commons foreign affairs committee want to grill Morgan McSweeney, Starmer’s former chief of staff, about his role in the appointment of Mandelson, in what would make for more painful viewing in Downing Street.
The view among Labour ministers and backbenchers is Starmer’s leadership will not be challenged before the May 7 elections to the Scottish and Welsh parliaments, and English councils, and that he will probably survive the immediate aftermath of what is likely to be a disastrous night for the party.
There is no obvious alternative waiting in the wings and some rivals have an interest in playing a long game. Angela Rayner, former deputy prime minister, has yet to resolve her tax dispute over a house purchase with HM Revenue & Customs.
Andy Burnham, Greater Manchester mayor, is out of contention because he is not an MP, but he is eyeing a return to Westminster in any future parliamentary by-elections.
Starmer’s allies nervously watch whether Wes Streeting, the Blairite health secretary, will make a move before Rayner and Burnham are ready to enter the fray. “His window is narrow,” said one Labour official.
In this febrile atmosphere, some senior party figures on Tuesday set out their vision of what a better Labour government might look like at a conference organised by the Good Growth Foundation think-tank.
Rayner, a late addition to the conference line-up, repeated her call for the party to be “bold”. She has previously advocated higher taxes on business and the wealthy to fund Labour’s programme.
Rayner gave a rundown of the reforms she had championed — including the Renters’ Rights Act, freezing rail fares, removing the child benefit cap and the employment rights bill — and said she was “pro-business and pro-growth and not the reverse”.
She also said ordinary people suspected the economy “is rigged in favour of others’ interests. And they’re right . . . what wealth is left is concentrated in fewer and fewer hands”.
Meanwhile Louise Haigh, a former minister who is influential in Labour’s “soft left”, argued the UK needed to abandon its “obsession” with fiscal rules that had stifled growth and held back living standards in order to win back voters’ trust.
It is the kind of argument that could be aired in a Labour leadership contest and spook markets.
“We expect the political risk premium in gilts to remain high this year, because of the risks to the prime minister’s position and the likely policies of his more left-leaning potential replacements,” said Elliott Jordan-Doak at Pantheon Macroeconomics.
Chris Curtis, a newly elected Labour MP, articulated frustration among his colleagues about Starmer’s inability to express how he wanted to change the country. “If you tell a story to do that, you can bring the Labour party with you,” he said.
Starmer’s predicament, as viewed by Labour MPs, is his inability to move the story on as the Mandelson saga continues to sap energy and authority from his premiership.
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