When Labour MPs met to hear from their leader on Monday, there was one group who felt particularly aggrieved. In the government’s reshuffle following the resignation of Angela Rayner, the party’s powerful north-west caucus had suffered a ‘machine gunning like nothing else’, in the words of a senior party official. Some 40 per cent of the reshuffle casualties are from this region. The changes risked, in the words of one aide, ‘reopening the whole Keir and Andy psychodrama’.

Within hours, Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, had duly attacked Keir Starmer’s new ‘London-centric’ line-up. Lucy Powell, a close Burnham ally, who was sacked as leader of the Commons, announced that she was running to replace Rayner as Labour’s deputy leader. Bridget Phillipson, the Education Secretary, has been drafted as No. 10’s preferred candidate. The race provides a litmus test of internal party opinion. ‘How many people want to be unhelpful to Keir?’ asks a loyalist MP.

It seems the answer is a lot. The Labour party has always been an uneasy coalition of factions, blocs and interests, in which geography plays its part. Wales and Scotland have been traditional power bases, and devolution has created new ones for Burnham and others in the north of England. One risk for Starmer is that, like Rishi Sunak before him, new caucuses spring up and entrench party divisions. This week’s launch of ‘Mainstream’ – a Burnham-backed soft-left group – is viewed with suspicion by some loyal to the Starmer project, who fear it amounts to a Burnham leadership vehicle.

A string........

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