Bruised, battered, but still in post. There is a world – unthinkable at some points last week – where Sir Keir Starmer could still be in No 10 this autumn.

The premier who oversaw greater rights for sitting tenants could be in the position of prime minister longer than many people in his own party want him to stay. Would be-successors face multiple hurdles just to get to the start of a leadership race.

As Starmer pointed out at last week’s Cabinet meeting, no challenger candidate yet exists. Former health secretary Wes Streeting may claim he’s running to be Labour leader, but even kicking off a bid depends on swathes of sitting ministers resigning their jobs to make up the 81 MP names to nominate him.

Meanwhile, Andy Burnham faces even more obstacles. The Greater Manchester Mayor needs to first get selected for Makerfield on Tuesday, although no one seriously expects that to be a problem. But he faces a much steeper battle to hold on to the seat for Labour.

The constituency near Wigan is a traditional Labour seat, and the party won it in the 2024 general election with 45.2 per cent of the vote, but Reform UK came second, trailing Labour by just 5,400 votes or 31.8 per cent of the vote. Crucially, more people voted for Reform than in any other seat that Labour won across the country.

But an even more telling statistic is how 64 per cent of its voters opted to leave the European Union in 2016. Gains for Reform at the local elections showed voters are still thinking along Brexit lines: at Wigan Borough Council, Reform won 24 out of the 25 available........

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