Labour grandees turning on Starmer marks the painful end of his premiership
KWhen Lord Charlie Falconer says the game is over, it feels like the ravens leaving the tower for Sir Keir Starmer.
Just like the myth that if the ravens go, the castle will collapse, the protective walls that the prime minister built around himself during his constantly besieged premiership are about to collapse.
And it’s not just Tony Blair’s former Chancellor telling the prime minister his time is up after Andy Burnham crushed Reform at Makerfield and now looks set to take over the party leadership and take over Downing Street.
Former deputy leader Harriet Harman and former home secretary Alan Johnson are among Labor elders who have pleaded with Sir Keir to leave.
While the Prime Minister remains holed up in Downing Street, ministers and MPs are lining up to deliver the same message to him this weekend.
Lord Falconer is not known as one to rock the boat or show disloyalty.
But it was asked Radio 4′S. Today Program On Saturday morning he was clear on whether Sir Keir would stand in the leadership election against Mr Burnham.
“My advice, unfortunately, would be: ‘don’t stand up.'”
He warned that the competition would be “very difficult” and “bad for the country”.
His advice could also mean former health secretary Wes Streeting, as calls grow for Mr Burnham to be crowned.
On Friday evening, Baroness Harman also bluntly said “the herd is not just acting against Keir Starmer, he is being stigmatised”.
Meanwhile, another loyal nobleman, Mr Johnson, told Andrew Marr: LBC: “If I could talk to him now I would say ‘Keir is over’, Andy will get up and he will win.”
These experienced voices echo the 100 Labor MPs who have already told the prime minister he should resign.
Ministers including cabinet members Heidi Alexander, Shabana Mahmood, Ed Miliband and Yvette Cooper are giving him the same message.
They all saw how Mr Burnham crushed Nigel Farage and Reform UK in a constituency where Reform should have won easily. In the current circumstances, increasing Labour’s vote share is an astonishing achievement.
But what this meant was that the prime minister appeared even more weakened and isolated, and that the appetite for a contest rather than a coronation for Mr Burnham had vanished.
It is astonishing that a prime minister should be put in this position less than two years after a massive 170,000 voter election victory, but has paid the price for failing to deal with Reformation.
