'We don't do regicide' Starmer is safe from his divided MPs - but not voters

A lesson in comms for any prime minister: asked whether you will serve another term, try to express some enthusiasm at the prospect.

- Eleni Courea

lesson in comms for any prime minister: asked whether you will serve another term, try to express some enthusiasm at the prospect. When at the end of his first term, David Cameron breezily told a reporter he would not serve a third, he inadvertently fired the starting gun for leadership jostling between his potential successors. Keir Starmer fell into the same trap this month when he was asked whether he would fight the next election.

"You're getting way ahead of me," he said. This equivocal response triggered such a frenzy of speculation that the prime minister quickly gave another statement clarifying that "of course I am going to stand at the next election. I've always said this is a decade of national renewal that I intend to lead." But the damage was done.

Starmer's ambivalence fuelled suspicions that he has not entirely made up his mind on whether to seek re-election past 2029.

The deep dissatisfaction among Labour MPs with the direction and performance of the government, which has spread to even some of Starmer's most loyal supporters, has created a febrile atmosphere where his future is being called into question. More than any other issue, parliamentary discontent has crystallised over the government's £5bn of welfare cuts, particularly cuts to support for disabled people.

Nearly 200 Labour MPs are said to oppose them ahead of a crunch vote expected in June.

Critics on the left of the Labour party have become increasingly vocal. Louise Haigh, the former cabinet minister, has called for a wealth tax and warned against a lurch to the right. This week John McDonnell, who now sits as an independent, urged the Labour grassroots to mount a challenge against Starmer and argued that the party itself was at risk.