Starmer’s ‘put up or shut up’ message to his rivals is overshadowed by a new scandal

Keir Starmer is a prime minister who cannot catch a break, even as he breaks cover to launch a fightback to save his premiership.

Moments after he delivered a “put up or shut up” message to his critics and rivals in a moment of defiance over his future as prime minister, news broke that Lord Matthew Doyle, the man he chose as his first director of communications and then personally appointed to the Lords, had been suspended by Labour over links to a paedophile.

The latest chapter in this ongoing crisis for the prime minister, which comes as he tried to draw a line under the chaos within the party after the most turbulent day of his premiership so far, threatens to bring Starmer right back to the brink.

It was Starmer’s admission he had appointed Peter Mandelson to the role of US ambassador – despite knowing of his ongoing relationship with Jeffrey Epstein – that led to him losing his chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, and the subsequent questions over his judgement and integrity, which led to calls for a change of leader.

Now, he faces tough questions about a different Labour peer.

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Lord Matthew Doyle campaigned for Sean Morton in 2017 after he had been charged over indecent images of children, saying he believed his assertions of innocence, but the councillor later admitted having the images.

In a statement, Lord Doyle apologised “unreservedly” for supporting Moray councillor Morton before the case against him had concluded.

He said he also had “extremely limited” contact with Morton after his conviction.

For a party that has been repeatedly accused of being too slow to act, this latest news is the last thing Starmer needs.

Moments before Lord Doyle‘s apology, the prime minister was surrounded by Union Jack pennants in a community centre in Hertfordshire, insisting that he would “never walk away from the mandate I was given to change this country”.

Making his first public appearance since surviving the hardest day of his premiership so far, Starmer said: “I will never walk away from the people that I'm charged with fighting for. And I will never walk away from the country that I love.”

The defiant statement is reminiscent of one from another beleaguered prime minister more than three decades ago. In 1995, John Major told his critics it was “time to put up or shut up” as he resigned as leader of the Conservative Party, challenging the right-wing cabinet minister Sir John Redwood to run against him in a leadership bid. Politicians quickly rallied behind Mr Major and he saw off the threat.

But that piece of political drama was three years from a narrowly won general election in the making – not a mere 19 months since winning one of the biggest majorities in history.

It was clear that, after the failed coup on Monday – with Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar apparently in the role as fall guy – Starmer needed to come out, face the public and issue a defiant message to show he will not back down.

But he was speaking to the Labour Party as much as he was the room. That message may well have been aimed at health secretary Wes Streeting, who is being accused by MPs of being behind Sarwar’s stunning press conference in which he called on Starmer to go.

The health secretary has publicly given Starmer his backing. But his unilateral decision to release his WhatsApp and email exchanges with the disgraced Lord Mandelson – revealing he disagreed with government policy on the Middle East and economy – was also a challenge to Starmer’s authority.

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Streeting claimed he was simply clearing his name and proving he had “nothing to hide” about his links to the former US ambassador. The prime minister’s spokesman refused to back Streeting over the move, and reiterated that “due process” should be followed while the material is being handled by police.

But the fact he was not sacked underlined the prime minister’s lack of authority – and emphasised why he needed to come out the next day to win it back.

As this latest crisis with Doyle underlines, Starmer is still very vulnerable. He has to get through a very difficult by-election in Gorton and Denton later this month and then, if he survives that, an even more fraught local and devolved election on 7 May.

But, now that he is free of the baggage of his former chief of staff, McSweeney, as well as McSweeney’s supporters like former director of communications, Tim Allan, Starmer has a chance of a moment of genuine renewal.

In showing his defiance, the PM should be free at last to speak from the heart and prove he is the very prime minister that everyone thought he would be when he was elected in a landslide victory in July 2024.

The fightback – and the message that he is not afraid to make himself front and centre of his government’s push – is a start.

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But there will be some who remember that Major saw off the pretenders to his crown, but then led his party to a catastrophic general election defeat two years later.

Starmer will now not only have to shake off the stench of sleaze and scandal, he will need to prove he won’t follow the same path as Major and can be a winner beyond surviving attempted coups.