When Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and chancellor Rachel Reeves took office, cabinet colleagues praised them as the adults in the room, contrasting their promises of stability with the tumult of the post-Brexit Tory governments.
Fast forward 16 months and Starmer’s allies this week managed to inadvertently stoke talk of a coup against their own leader, while Reeves’ Budget preparations have been derided as “chaotic” after sparking a sell-off in government bonds following a U-turn on raising income tax.
For Labour MPs, already despairing as their party languishes on less than 20 per cent in the polls, the past week has crystallised their unhappiness and now poses an existential threat to the ill-defined Starmer and Reeves project.