They say that if you’re explaining, you’re losing. That quote, attributed to Ronald Reagan, came to mind yesterday as I watched Keir Starmer squirm his way through howls of laughter in the House of Commons as he insisted “we are a united team.”
This was fish in a barrel stuff for Tory leader Kemi Badenoch, who clearly enjoyed the PM’s discomfort. The reason why so many opposition MPs (and more than a few Labour members) found the situation so entertaining is because Westminster was gripped on Tuesday night by vicious anonymous briefings from Number Ten, accusing various cabinet ministers of planning to topple Keir Starmer.
These triggered further briefings to the press from Labour figures either furious or contemptuous of a Downing Street operation that thought two weeks before a potentially explosive Budget was the right time to tell the press that the PM’s position is at risk from critics in his own Cabinet.
The consensus in Westminster last night was that the botched effort from the PM’s aides to smoke out potential leadership rivals has spectacularly backfired, making him more vulnerable. One Labour MP last night told the veteran chronicler of Labour affairs, John Rentoul, that the situation was “like the start of the First World War, when the great powers mobilised and created an unstoppable momentum for war without meaning to.”
It hasn’t taken long for this government to go from Starmer’s promise of a “politics that treads a little lighter on people’s lives” to comparisons with total war.
I thought the Chancellor’s recent appearances, rolling the pitch for the Budget horror show, were pretty odd but the sight of her boss trying to distance himself from attacks on his own colleagues briefed to the press by his own advisors takes us to new levels of absurdity.
Spare a thought for the City chiefs invited for drinks and nibbles in Downing Street last night; it must have been like turning up to a dinner party and being painfully aware your hosts have just had an almighty row. The Times reported that the guest list for the “informal reception” – designed to prepare the ground for a difficult Budget – included bosses of NatWest, software giant Sage, M&S and Taylor Wimpy, whose executive chair, Simon Emeny, yesterday told the press that the government “needs new ideas.”
It seems that plenty of Labour MPs agree with him.