I never thought, in the year 2025, I’d be hearing sentences that started “a week is a long time in politics”; and yet here we are, so much has happened that only the ultimate cliche can contain it.

On Tuesday night, sources inside, one assumes, Downing Street more or less called for a leadership challenge, in the manoeuvre known as “come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough”. On Wednesday morning, Wes Streeting was on the Today programme, trying to sound urbane, unflappable, but most of all, loyal to Keir Starmer – only to the most casual listener, however. When he said he hadn’t spoken to the prime minister, the implication was clear: if this briefing were done without Starmer’s sanction, then surely he would have contacted his health secretary, if only to blow off a bit of steam?

What would happen, in such a challenge? Would Streeting reap the benefit of the rule change of 2021, in which a candidate would need 20% of the parliamentary party to nominate, rather than 10%? All the rumours back then were that this change was specifically designed to favour Streeting, by keeping mavericks, outliers, lefties – or, let’s give them their umbrella description, any MP the membership didn’t actively loathe – off the ballot. Would other candidates........

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