The party’s MPs know their leader is failing but with no obvious replacement, getting rid of him now would cause more hurt than healing
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estminster time is counted in scandals, resignations, rebellions, U-turns and leadership crises. All the things that aren’t good government age a regime. Keir Starmer has presided over a lot of woes in 18 months, making a young government look old.
The premature decrepitude is more advanced, and more disturbing to Labour MPs, because it feels like continuity from the turbulent Tory regime that came before. The policies and personnel are different, but to the casual passing voter the sound of screaming and breaking crockery around Downing Street is familiar as a sign of a political problem family in residence.
All the more so when it is Peter Mandelson’s name being howled in despair, conjuring memories of ministerial misdeeds from a bygone era. Starmer has only been an MP since 2015, but he looks broken under the cumulative weight of a decades-old incumbency.
