Ed Miliband is set to fight Wes Streeting and Keir Starmer for No. 10 as Streeting prepares to resign tomorrow morning and trigger a leadership contest, the Telegraph reports.
Wes Streeting will on Thursday fire the starting gun on a three-way leadership contest with Ed Miliband and Sir Keir Starmer, allies of the Prime Minister believe.
The Health Secretary is expected to resign from the Government and trigger a leadership contest on Thursday morning, and the Prime Minister expects Miliband to throw his hat in the ring shortly thereafter.
Sir Keir’s allies insist he will not resign but battle his former allies to remain in Downing Street.
Streeting, who met Sir Keir for a 16-minute showdown in No. 10 before the King’s Speech on Wednesday morning, has been scrambling for 81 Labour MPs who will back him to take over as Labour leader.
If a contest is triggered, Sir Keir is planning to stand against Streeting and a challenger from the party’s Left wing.
Labour sources said the soft-Left faction was likely to propose Miliband as its candidate because Angela Rayner had unresolved tax issues and Andy Burnham was not eligible to stand because he is not an MP.
Whitehall sources told The Telegraph that a leadership contest would plunge the country into chaos by paralysing government business and spooking the bond markets.
The value of sterling slid against the dollar on Wednesday morning in response to news that Streeting was preparing a leadership challenge, while Government borrowing costs improved only marginally from Tuesday’s 28-year high.
Streeting is understood to have told MPs he will make his move on Thursday, after days of speculation.
An attempt to force the Prime Minister from office without a formal challenge was dismissed by Sir Keir on Monday at a tense Cabinet meeting, in which he told his detractors they could only remove him by meeting the nomination threshold of Labour MPs.
If a contest is triggered on Thursday, the timetable will be set by Labour’s ruling National Executive Committee (NEC), but it is unlikely to be long enough to allow Burnham to return to Westminster by winning a by-election.
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Keir Starmer becomes Keir Knut
This is so depressing. I mean, all those voters who (like me) voted “Anything but Labour” last week – they’re going to see Milliwatt or Streeting, or anybody crowned New Leader, and go “oh, that’s all right then”, aren’t they? Aye, right…
I saw that dismal face, on an LBC screen by a road in London (how to increase road-rage?), with the strapline “Starmer says He’ll Prove Doubters Wrong”. No, Comrade Starmerin, we’re not doubters (just as I was never “vaccine-hesitant“). We just hate you, your government, and everything it’s done. Begone. Now.
That is the key point – it is not just Starmer. There is Wendolene, the office temp, Mad Ed, Nandy Pandy, Pixie Balls Cooper, Streeting, Reed. It is the whole Labour party and policies we hate.
I’d pay to watch a real fight, with knives. Like Spock and Captain Kirk or at the end of Spartacus.
How about the best possible replacement for Starmer? I propose…. No-one.
No-one, standing on a platform of Do Nothing. Just Let People Get On With It As They Like.
The trouble is, it’s too late for that. Before No-One PM can start being the best Prime Minister the UK has ever had, we need to call in demolition experts to dismantle all the crap past governments have erected in the way of any sane (let alone enjoyable) life in the UK.
We truly need NOTA – None Of The Above – at the end of every election ballot automatically!
With that in place I would be happy to see voting made compulsory although I understand where that is the case there is little to no punishment.
A few weeks ago there was a story in the media about a Liebour MP who said they were prepared to resign to trigger a byelection that Burnham could stand in then enter the leadership contest if elected. The national executive might delay the final vote for leader long enough for Burnham to take part.
We’re stuck with Liebour until 2029, but I’ve no idea if one of the potential new PMs would be ever so slightly less awful than the other(s).
Genuine race to the bottom – of the gene pool.
They’re going to get rid of a suit full of bugger all and replace it with another suit full of bugger all.
But to be fair we would get somebody with greater experience in buggering.
Oh yes there is. Milliband taking ivermectin makes me cringe with fear!
Streeting has said in recent days that he is ‘ready to be PM’. He is as delusional as the present incumbent. ‘Ready’ in what sense.? He has done nothing in his career, and his list of achievements at the Health Dept is lacking in any substance. He’s another chancer for whom his personal career means more than any responsibility he holds to the voters.
Of course. He’s ready to step in as the permanent government’s elected avatar.
And I can vouch for the truth of that, having worked in the NHS!
Act 12 of this year’s Proles Pantomime. Roll up, roll up, tickets are going like hot cakes.
Such a charade, isn’t it.
Didn’t we have this merry-go-round since 2016 already? Keep rotating prime minister in the hope to find someone who can sell the same never-changing policies with more success?
The permanent UK government, which since Blair firmly and basically unchallenged runs the UK, is like you say finding it ever harder to have an elected avatar in place that is persuasive enough.
The kind of people that want to lend themselves as avatars aren’t going ro be the best people to start with. And the policies are such a disaster that even better avatars are eventually going ro struggle.
I guess now it’s a race between a true opposition to the permanent government emerging in an election and the descent of Britain into ever greater totalitarianism.
I wouldn’t want to bet which way it goes.
“The kind of people that want to lend themselves as avatars aren’t going ro be the best people to start with.”
Spot on. I’ve seen it, professionally, many times. On one occasion, I was recruited by a high-up boss who was genuinely trying to change and improve things, to cut out all the nonsense which was leaving the firm struggling.
Trouble is, he had limited power to cut out all the people below him who were very happy and comfortable with things as they were (or keep them but tell them to cut it out). After 6 months, I resigned.
In some respects it’s been going on for a lot longer. John Major was the last person to both win and loose an election as party leader.