Last week brought fresh proof of Keir Starmer’s uselessness, as he backed creepy US ambassador Peter Mandelson one day, then sacked him the next. The PM doesn’t learn, having dithered over sacking Angela Rayner too. He squandered his rapidly depleted political capital trying to save her.
To be fair, he has a little talent as his disposal. Otherwise he’d have got rid of Chancellor Rachel Reeves months ago. She’s more out of her depth than he is.
Starmer has zero flare for politics. He can’t lead, can’t inspire, can’t think on his feet and can’t even lie effectively. The PM pitched himself as a man of probity in contrast to Tory sleaze, but snaffled more freebies than anyone else at Westminster.
Of course, the biggest scandal is how Labour has destroyed the economy, and that crisis will come to a head in just over two months on November 26.
Reeves, or whoever is actually writing this year’s Budget, somehow has to plug a black hole of anything between £30billion and £50billion.
She has to do that without crushing the economy through further tax hikes, whipping up backbenches into rebellion through spending cuts, or terrifying the bond market with still more borrowing.
It’s likely to blow up in her face, and could end in a bond market crisis or run on the pound. In that case, Starmer could go down faster than you can say Liz Truss.
But who on earth could take over? Rachel Reeves? Ed Miliband? Angela Rayner? Stop laughing. None are fit to run the country, although Labour members might delude themselves that Miliband or Rayner are the answer. Heaven help us.
That leaves onlly Andy Burnham, self-styled King of the North. He had a shot of becoming King of Labour in 2015, but the Jeremy Corbyn insurgency put his leadership bid to the sword.
Burnham has now built up his fiefdom as Mayor of Manchester and still fancies his chances, but faces one huge obstacle.
He isn’t an MP. To challenge Starmer, he needs a by-election. Conveniently, Andrew Gwynne’s seat of Denton and Gorton could soon fall vacant.
Gwynne was sacked as a minister by Keir Starmer and suspended from the Labour Party, and is reportedly preparing to stand down.
Burnham would leap at the chance to inherit a safe constituency and march on Starmer’s throne, but faces two hurdles. First, Starmer’s cronies will surely try to block him from the candidate list.
Handing Burnham a commons berth could sign their boss’s death warrant. Yet the bigger threat may not come from within Labour at all.
Nigel Farage could sink Burnham’s plan without even meaning to.
Reform UK is ripping up the map. In May, Farage’s insurgents seized their first councils and even mayoralties in Greater Lincolnshire and Hull.
In June, a poll put Reform on 34%, far ahead of Labour’s 25% and the Conservatives’ crumbling 15%. With Starmer in meltdown, Reform may be even stronger today.
These days, there’s no such thing as a safe Labour seat. And that’s a huge problem for Burnham. He might expect to glide into Parliament suing his Northern powerbase, but Farage’s shock troops could wreck the coronation.
Voters disillusioned with dithering Labour might rally behind Reform to block Burnham. Or just for the fun of it.
Any Labour figure who sticks his head above the parapet risks getting it chopped off. Without a Commons seat, Burnham cannot strike, however weak Starmer becomes.
Farage may have inadvertently saved him. And he’ll be thrilled to have done so. If Starmer leads Labour into the next election, there will only be one winner.
