Over chilli and rice at a dinner for a group of Labour MPs at his Buckinghamshire country retreat of Chequers on Thursday evening, Sir Keir Starmer tried once again to reassure his backbenchers that the economy, and keeping their seats, tops his priority list.

The Prime Minister has spent the first week of the year struggling to hammer home how his Government is tackling cost-of-living pressures while Donald Trump’s imperialist spree dominated politics.

Every attempt by Starmer to talk about the economy – at a community centre in Reading on Monday, Cabinet on Tuesday and holding a baby in Bedfordshire on Thursday – was vying for attention with Trump’s musings about whether he prioritises the international world order.

“My constituents don’t care about Caracas; they care about which hour of the day they can afford to put their heating on,” as one Labour MP put it after the capture of Nicolás Maduro from Venezuela.

Keeping those backbenchers onside is key to whether Starmer sees out the year in No 10, even though Labour’s ratings in opinion polls have halved since their election landslide.

Unhappiness with Starmer appears to have peaked before Parliament’s Christmas break. Now in the new year, his allies see him as more secure in post. That’s in part because Labour Party managers have got better, but also because rebels have been firmly told to keep their grievances out of the press.

“We know who they are, and they’ve been isolated,” one senior MP and ally of Starmer said of the plotters. A second Government source said the MPs who have been mouthing off have been “put back in........

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