Why the ‘coup plot’ fiasco makes this Budget even harder for Starmer and Reeves

As the prime minister apologises to Wes Streeting for a hostile briefing that probably emanated from No 10, one consequence is yet more pressure on Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves to get the Budget right – already a near-impossible task.

With so many of his cabinet reportedly interested in acquiring his job, the PM and his chancellor are very much in this together…

In further echoes of the popular TV show Traitors, suspicion is everywhere. Although lobby journalists defend their sources like a tigress protects her cubs, there was a widespread assumption that the person ultimately responsible was the prime minister’s chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney. At any rate, it was the name that Kemi Badenoch put to Starmer at Prime Minister’s Questions. Now it’s reported the PM has read the riot act to the entire No 10 staff about negative briefings on cabinet colleagues: such attacks are “completely unacceptable”.

It is also reported that Starmer was assured by Downing Street staff that none of them had briefed against Streeting. Perhaps Starmer should keep them all in after work like naughty schoolchildren until one of them fesses up and gets the cane.

It has left the PM, rather than the actual culprit, saying sorry to Streeting for something he didn’t do, nor supposedly, anyone else in Downing Street. So much for “an end to chaos and confusion”.

Cast your mind back not so long ago to the days of Labour in opposition, when the party enjoyed 20-point opinion poll leads and the shadow chancellor was seriously talked about as an eventual successor to Starmer. No longer.

A critical moment. Rather more important than any hurt feelings within cabinet is the latest dismal news about the economy: negligible growth in the third quarter, and a very slight contraction in September. Much of that was down to a post-hacking shutdown at Jaguar Land Rover, but everyone knows things are bleak, and the Budget will be tough.

The best that Reeves can do is to make lifting the two-child benefits cap the centrepiece of her performance, which will at least cheer the backbenchers and quite possibly save her job.

Yes, and now more than ever. If a prime minister is enjoying strong poll leads for his party and favourable personal ratings, they can sack an unpopular, awkward and/or hopeless chancellor with minimal risk to their personal reputation or the standing of the government. Evidently, that is not the case for Starmer with Reeves. The usual (and difficult) question posed to a PM when a chancellor is let go is: “If they’re resigning, why are you still here?” Reeves was very much Starmer’s choice; he’s defended her, even as he’s regretted her decisions, and No 10 has beefed up its oversight and economic competencies.

Unlike, say, the departures of chancellors Callaghan and Lamont under Harold Wilson and John Major, respectively, Starmer might not be in a strong enough position to survive long enough to fight the following general election. In fact, it would be a bit more like the time when Liz Truss, in her brief and tumultuous premiership in 2022, had to jettison her chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, to settle the markets... and lasted herself for only another six days working uneasily with his surprise successor, Jeremy Hunt.

Ironically enough, the markets approve of Reeves because they fear more borrowing under any of her likely replacements.

On the other hand, if the nasty rumours about Big Wes are true and Starmer does get dislodged, the new prime minister will want to appoint their own chancellor. Reeves would be lucky to get offered the transport brief.