Comment: 'Where's Wes?' The ball is in Streeting's court now. But it's advantage Starmer, who may be able to delay, delay, delay and just stay, says Chris Blackhurst.
Monday 11 May 2026 15:07 BST
Starmer dodges questions on possibility of leadership contest from Angela Rayner: 'We're friends.'
The health secretary and business secretary huddled in a darkened room together this weekend. Could it be a sign of leadership plotting? Sorry to disappoint, but Wes Streeting and Peter Kyle were watching The Devil Wears Prada 2.
'Somebody who was planning to pull the plug and launch a leadership bid in a couple of days time doesn't go to the cinema with a friend,' said Kyle, as he tried to dampen speculation that his Wes is planning to come for his boss this morning. But these are febrile times and, while they may not have chatted during the film, there were opportunities before and after. Exactly. After all, the plot is all about a boss staying on too long and behaving badly.
Such is the crazy atmosphere surrounding Sir Keir Starmer's tenure, following Labour's disastrous local election results, that anything now feels possible.
Peter Kyle said Wes Streeting spent his weekend at the cinema and not launching a leadership bid (AFP/Getty).
Starmer duly came out swinging – emboldened and confident. He's done this before, of course, and there seems to be an element of Starmer that almost enjoys the back-to-the-wall defence. It is as if he has to be dragged to the precipice before finding the passion that has so eluded him previously. Whether he has bought himself more time remains to be seen. But here is what might happen now.
First, and most likely, Starmer can delay, and delay, and just stay. What helps Starmer is that those ranged against him are a disparate crew. There he is – prime minister, at the top, on his own, the deliverer of a general-election landslide. Yes, he takes responsibility for what has happened since. But it is also a chance for him to appear statesmanlike, to invite comparison with those who would dare unseat him midstream.
West? The so-called stalking horse moved to the UK from Australia in her thirties and was elected as an MP in 2015 under Jeremy Corbyn. Her 'leadership challenge' appears to have disappeared like dew in the morning – she doesn't have the 81 MPs to unseat Starmer – but has called for the PM to go by September, and for a leadership contest to take place before then. We now wait for her to see – again – if she has the numbers.
Her preferred pick is Rayner. The former deputy prime minister is defiantly left-wing and, as her reaction indicated, still firmly believes Labour should be heading in that direction – while many of its traditional supporters in its heartlands drifted rightwards towards Reform. She has so far passed up any chance to declare her hand for herself, presumably because her tax affairs, which she thought were definitely going to be sorted out – and in her favour – before the elections, are still being investigated.
Rayner herself has called for the return of the king on the ship canal, Andy Burnham. He is popular, no doubt about that. He speaks well and wins over the lads and lasses, but he is not even in the Commons. A seat must be found for him and then he must win it – and there is no such thing as a safe Labour constituency these days. Nigel Farage and Zack Polanski would throw everything at it, splitting the Labour vote.
As for Burnham's mayoralty of the self-styled UK's 'second city', that too could end up in Reform's hands. Manchester – home of the Co-operative movement, scene of the Peterloo Massacre, and once lived in by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels – falling to Nige. Such a prospect still feels unthinkable, but no longer impossible.
Some other rank outsider may, like West, come from nowhere to put up a challenge later in the year. This is the party that gave us Jeremy Corbyn, after all. 24 hours is a long time in politics, let alone six months. The old dogs growl and chunter. John McDonnell is furious that West may have placed the ball in Streeting's court by going too early. Battles within battles, wheels within wheels, round and round. There will be plenty of talking this week, lots of muttering and canvassing, but little sign of any concerted change of direction. Labour is a car without an engine. There is a steering wheel and there are tyres, but no power.
Perhaps Streeting and/or Rayner may yet seize the moment. But history teaches us that those who jump first usually land badly. Can they really be sure of carrying sufficient support? It seems unlikely.
Starmer, too, has taken steps to reinforce his line. Whoever tackles him must deal with Gordon Brown and Harriet Harman. That may provoke laughter in right-wing tribal and media circles, but within Labour they still carry weight. Certainly, Brown was a lacklustre premier – sounds familiar? – but there is no doubting his bruising political credentials. When he speaks, people listen – witness his dramatic last-minute intervention in the Scottish independence referendum campaign. Harman, perhaps less so, but her presence at Starmer's side heads off the charge from Rayner and others that his administration is merely a boys' club.
Unlike Streeting, Keir did not spend his Sunday buying popcorn and candy floss. He was thinking ahead. He is not departing, as others in his position might have done. He is delaying and delaying and, for now at least, staying put.
