'We need a clearer story' What does this loss mean for Labour and for Starmer?

When Keir Starmer was urged to stand down two weeks ago by Labour’s Scottish leader, Anas Sarwar, his closest advisers presented him a choice: fight, flight or call a leadership contest.

- Pippa Crerar Political editor

The prime minister chose the first option and his Downing Street team sprang into action to contain the threat. At the moment of greatest peril for Starmer, MPs peered over the precipice and didn’t like what they saw.

In the fortnight since, not much has changed. Even with Labour’s humiliating defeat in the Gorton and Denton byelection, where it was pushed into third place behind the Greens and Reform, the uneasy truce has persisted.

“It’s not working, but I don’t see what the alternative is,” one cabinet minister told the Guardian. A senior party figure described MPs as “dejected, doom-ful but not mutinous”. One Labour MP characterised the situation as “stalemate - for now”.

Starmer’s allies are determined to make the most of what is likely to be a brief hiatus.

“Keir is stronger for MPs having stepped back from the abyss. They know a contest would unleash more chaos and their constituents would hate it,” one said.

They believe he has time to prove his detractors wrong – first with the spring statement on Tuesday, which they indicate will confirm a brighter economic outlook, then with cost of living measures coming into effect in April. “People will start to feel the difference.”