Renewed outbreak of cabinet infighting disastrous for PM

It takes a peculiar kind of genius to see your opponents in turmoil and think, “We could do with a bit of that.” Thus the response of not one but three cabinet ministers to Robert Jenrick’s defection to Reform was not to keep quiet and watch two opposition parties tear each other apart.

- JOHN RENTOUL

No, they decided that this would be the time to reopen the wounds of Labour’s civil war. They thought it would be a good idea to tell Stephen Swinford and Patrick Maguire of The Times that Keir Starmer should copy Kemi Badenoch’s pre-emptive strike against Jenrick by sacking Wes Streeting.

They were so annoyed by Streeting’s “wild behaviour”, “breaching collective responsibility” and “pushing the boundary of what’s acceptable” that they decided the best way to support the prime minister would be to breach collective responsibility themselves.

Presumably they told themselves that what Starmer would have wanted, given Streeting’s cheek in warning that the government should “get it right first time”, is that they should behave even more badly, briefing anonymously against the health secretary.

On the contrary, this level of semi-public recrimination suggests a premiership in its death throes. There was nothing wrong with Heidi Alexander, the transport secretary, loyally urging her colleagues at the cabinet meeting on Tuesday to form a Praetorian guard around the prime minister - nothing except her shaky grasp of Roman history, in which the Praetorian guard repeatedly murdered emperors.