Against a backdrop of catastrophic briefings and an upcoming Budget doom, contenders are vying to challenge Keir Starmer for the Labour leadership – but none of them have any idea how they would do things differently, says Eliot Wilson

Last week was not a good one for the Prime Minister. With the latest opinion poll showing Labour and the Conservatives essentially neck-and-neck, and Reform UK still comfortably ahead, the government’s fortunes have very clearly collapsed in the 16 months since its landslide election victory. Sir Keir Starmer is already established as the most unpopular premier on record, and half of those surveyed think he should quit.

Amid stacked-up barrels of electoral gunpowder, someone in Downing Street started playing with matches. “Sources” briefed the media that Starmer would fight any challenge to his leadership and warned that the Health and Social Care Secretary, Wes Streeting, was actively plotting against his leader. Starmer denies authorising any briefing against his own cabinet: if he is telling the truth, then the best that can be said is that he has lost control of his own officials and advisers in Number 10 and they feel they are at liberty to freelance in a savagely partisan........

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