Briefing war Spotlight thrown on triangle of personal relationships

One way to flush out a leadership challenger, according to Gordon Brown's onetime enforcer, is to push them over the edge.

- Eleni Courea Jessica Elgot Pippa Crerar

In his chronicle of his time at the centre of power, Damian McBride wrote that New Labour favourite David Miliband had a “tendency to treat rebellion like a reluctant bather inching his way into the sea at Skegness”.

McBride wrote: “It made sense to push him right in at the outset, on the grounds that he’d run straight back to his towel, and not try again for at least six months.”

Some insiders believe this was the strategy behind a decision by Keir Starmer’s closest allies to accuse Wes Streeting of leading a plot to replace him as prime minister. The flaw in that plan is that far from reluctantly dipping his toe in, the health secretary embraces any chance to position himself for the leadership with the confidence of an Olympic diver.

The extraordinary briefing war has thrown the spotlight on the relationships between three of Labour’s most senior figures - Starmer, his chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, and Streeting, the man who many in Labour believe will be their next prime minister.

The conventional wisdom in Westminster has long been that Starmer was a vehicle for McSweeney’s project to wrest control of the party away from the hard left - with Starmer eventually handing over to Streeting.

Others argue that even if this was once true, Starmer and McSweeney are now inseparable and their success or failure is tied together. At every critical juncture, the prime minister has stuck by his closest adviser at the expense of other senior aides and ministers.