There have been far too few defences of Keir Starmer in the British press of late. Time for a modest redress. As the last rites are muttered over his premiership, his colleagues want you to know that this is all his fault. The humiliation is complete: even Labour Together – the outfit that quietly plotted Starmer’s leadership bid – is now sharpening its knives. It is polling members on who should replace him, indulging the comforting fantasy that swapping captains will somehow stop the ship from sinking.

The Tory experience of regicide should offer a caution: do not depose a king unless you have already settled on a prince who understands why the kingdom is in crisis. The Tories toppled Boris Johnson and installed Liz Truss, whose zeal to slash taxes for the wealthy detonated the markets and sealed her party’s fate. Why? Because they convinced themselves that Johnson had failed for being insufficiently rightwing.

In Starmer’s case, the Blairites – including Blair himself – whisper that a supposed leftward lurch is to blame. Starmer, they insist, was never a true believer in the Labour right. Combine that with his lack of vision and shortage of charisma, and the autopsy is complete. Their answer is the health secretary, Wes Streeting: a Blairite ultra who seems to have coveted the premiership since roughly the moment he learned to walk.

Streeting has tried in recent months to burnish progressive credentials on

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