The PM is finished. It’s only a matter of time.
Angela Rayner has her eye on Keir Starmer’s job, but she’s not the only one (Image: Getty)
Keir Starmer is just no good at the job. Everything he touches ends in humiliation, starting with his abysmal Chagos Islands deal. That showed how given the chance, he’ll always put British interests last, even betraying army veterans. His shameless freebie-grabbing and freeloading exposed him as even more grasping than the last lot, while the fibs and lies flow like booze at a hospitality event.
Starmer claimed he never spotted the £22billion “black hole” before the election. He publicly backed 1950s Waspi women, then quickly dropped them. He played endless word games about not taxing “working people”, while lining up “the biggest tax hike in history”. And pledged to stop the small boats when he hadn’t got a clue how to do it.
His government is now drifting like a punctured dinghy in the Channel, while rivals plot a new course, including Andy Burnham, Wes Streeting and now the new frontrunner Angela Rayner.
Arguably, the former deputy PM’s resignation was one of the few things that went right for Starmer. The PM never felt comfortable around her. He has no personality, Rayner has too much.
But his luck never holds for long and Red Ange is now plotting to overthrow him, as I warned she would.
The moment Rayner stepped down I said she’d be back – with a vengeance. She was forced to resign for dodging a £40,000 stamp duty bill on her luxury £800,000 second home in Hove. As is the Labour way, Rayner denied everything until she admitted it. In a more honourable age, her career would have been over. Not today. Not in this Labour government.
Starmer is no longer in charge of his own party, rebellious Labour activists are. And Rayner is their golden girl.
As Labour descends into civil war over Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s upcoming “omnishambles” Budget, Rayner senses her moment. Yesterday, she dropped a dark hint that she’s on her way back. Asked about a return to frontline politics, she said she had not “gone away”.
She then tried to seize the moral high ground by scorning “tittle-tattle in Westminster” while claiming to focus on the “real challenges that real people are facing”.
As if. Like any other politician, Rayner is focusing on her next career move. And it’s a hugely ambitious one.
Labour’s factional infighting is out in the open, and Rayner has spotted her moment. She says the party must stay united. Presumably, she means united around her.
Don’t think Rayner will be any better than Starmer. Her hard-left Employment Rights Bill could cost businesses £5billion they can’t afford and destroy tens of thousands more jobs, on top of the hundreds of thousands Reeves has wiped out. Rayner doesn’t care. What matters is pleasing her union backers.
Today, Keir Starmer stands accused of being in office but not in power. If Red Ange has her way, soon he won’t be in either. Instead, she will. And then we’ll soon see the true meaning of omnishambles.
