How being PM became the top job that suddenly no one wants

Westminster has had its fun, but the game’s up. Energy secretary Ed Miliband – one of those named by anonymous “Downing Street sources” as harbouring leadership ambitions – has said no, he does not. “I had the best inoculation technique against wanting to be leader of the Labour Party,” he said. “Which is that I was leader of the Labour Party.”

Asked if he didn’t fancy “being a Donald Trump, coming back for more”, he was adamant: “Definitely not.”

This, after Wes Streeting was forced yesterday to deny that he too had been preparing to try to take over from Keir Starmer. It seems that the mysterious person reputedly briefing on behalf of the prime minister has achieved part of their aim – the top job is suddenly one that nobody wants.

Not even Starmer himself. When he was invited at Prime Minister’s Questions by the Labour MP for Rhyl to join her for a stroll on our new promenade to see just what North Wales has to offer, he said: “That is a very appealing invitation just at the moment” – and with enough feeling to suggest that he really would rather be somewhere other than at the despatch box.

The more the pretenders to the throne protest their modesty, of course, the harder Starmer should count his spoons.

Just before her fall, as she approached the peak of her power as a threat to Starmer, Angela Rayner surprised us all by declaring there was “not a chance” that she would be prime minister. Asked in July if she would be interested in the top job at some point, she said: “No.” Although the reason she gave was not wholly complimentary to Starmer: “Have you ever seen a prime minister after a year or two in government? It would age me by 10 years within six months.”

The denials count for nothing, of course, the moment the ball comes loose at the back of the scrum, in Boris Johnson’s phrase, which is why the pre-emptive strike on behalf of the prime minister against Streeting and others was so ill-advised.

Starmer’s best protection against a leadership challenge is to do the job well enough that a rival candidate would be unable to find 81 Labour MPs prepared to go public to nominate them as an alternative.

Equally, though, the best way to replace Starmer as prime minister would be for a minister to do such an outstanding job that their succession to the top job appears to a critical mass of people to be in the national interest.

That is why the feverish leadership speculation among Labour MPs seems so misplaced. Everyone can understand the criticisms made of Starmer as prime minister – the errors of judgement, the poor communication and the dysfunctional team – but no one has been able to explain how replacing him with an unidentified alternative would improve the lives of the people.

Streeting is a brilliant and fluent communicator, and might well be a better prime minister than Starmer. But would the difference be enough to offset the damage to the Labour Party and to the reputation of politics of yet another leadership election and yet another prime minister?

It is not as if, after 16 months in office, Streeting has so improved the care provided by the NHS that he has made an irresistible case for his promotion. He makes much of waiting lists having fallen, but the reality is that they have hardly moved. The prime minister was told off yesterday by Full Fact, the truth-based charity, which pointed out that the 5 million extra appointments in the government’s first year was lower than the increase the previous year under the Conservatives.

Equally, Shabana Mahmood is an impressive and plain-speaking politician. But unless the home secretary stops the boats, why would the Labour Party make her prime minister?

Miliband’s claim is even less credible. If he could, in the next two years or so, invent a cheap form of carbon capture and an equally cheap way of storing wind and solar energy, thus miraculously delivering his promise of £300 off electricity bills, perhaps people will beg him to overcome his “inoculation”.

But if a rival to Starmer is merely offering the vibe of leftiness, which is so far all that Miliband (and Rayner) really promise, the case for change is not made.

Alastair Campbell is quite right to warn that No 10 pouring petrol on the fire of leadership speculation only risks handing power to Nigel Farage. But the best way to see off the threat of Farage happens to coincide with the interests of the leadership candidates: if they deliver on the NHS, secure borders and the cost of living, Farage will be confounded and their ambitions promoted.