Bring back Blair as foreign secretary

The Conservatives may be knownas the “stupid party” but if Labour ditches Keir Starmer it will become the idiotic one.

- Anthony Seldon

Starmer must get better but he must stay. Here’s why.‘The world is at its most perilous state since the cold war. A novice in No 10 would be a disaster for Britain and make it look absurd to allies and foes alike. The economy and markets are still fragile. Transition to a new PM and chancellor would spook the markets, likely provoke a meltdown and a general election, a scenario the Cabinet Office has been gaming, and Reform, freshly emboldened by Robert Jenrick and Nadhim Zahawi, will win.

A leadership election would take six months to complete, and a further six for the new team to learn the ropes: another year lost. And for what? Starmer is bright, serious, steady and at last is learning.

None of the contenders are anywhere close to being prime ministerial quality: nor is there any fresh magic agenda for them to offer. It’s worse than stupid. It’s idiotic.

Something startling though needs to happen and now. One thing you learn from writing books about prime ministers is patterning. A point comes in some premierships where only a profoundly radical intervention will save the incumbent from merely bumping along the bottom, from relaunch to U-turn, in office but not in power. That point has arrived for Starmer.