The U-turn on welfare has given backbenchers a taste of the prime minister's blood

His most recent retreat will placate some rebel MPs, but the next time Sir Keir Starmer has a tough decision to push through, he will find it harder to be taken seriously

- Andrew Rawnsley

Many unhappy returns, prime minister. It is a fair bet that this is not how Sir Keir Starmer imagined he would be marking his first birthday at Number 10. This week's anniversary of the "loveless landslide" he secured in July last year has come with a brutal demonstration of just how little affection there is for his government among many of its own MPs.

In excess of 120 of them, more than enough to bulldoze that colossal parliamentary majority, signed the wrecking amendment designed to destroy his keystone legislation to pare down the cost of welfare. The mutiny has been spearheaded by 10 chairs of select committees, longstanding MPs whom Downing Street could not shrug aside as inconsequential nonentities or habitually revolting hard lefties. More than half the rebels are from the 2024 intake, a group whose loyalty used to be so taken for granted that they were caricatured as robotically obedient Starmtroopers. Only belatedly did the prime minister grasp that this was seriously threatening stuff and the kind of pickle normally associated with a fin-de-siècle regime on its last legs rather than a government that swept into office just 12 months ago.

Welfare reform is rarely easy and especially neuralgic for Labour governments. Helping the needy and tackling poverty are the lodestars for many of the party's MPs. This means that reform requires meticulous preparation, astute communication and smooth execution. We have instead been witnesses to a textbook example of panicky decision-making, maladroit messaging and terrible personnel management.