THE IDES OF FEBRUARY?

Early favourites to replace Starmer (yes, seriously)

Cabinet minister after cabinet minister issued public endorsements of Keir Starmer on Monday, especially in light of the questionable decision by Scottish Labour leader Anus Sarwar to publicly stick the first knife in.  The Parliamentary Labour Party met on Monday evening, during which Starmer is said to have received a round of applause - albeit neither unanimous or particularly enthusiastic.  No matter what praise the likes of Rayner and Streeting heap on Starmer in social media statements, the vultures are circling - if just out of sight above that low bank of mist, for now.

The big wound inflicted by the Mandelson affair is one of Starmer's own making, but it would not constitute such an easily fatal blow were it not for his dire record as PM to date.  Labour's poll lead began to evaporate within weeks of their return to government, that's on Starmer.  If he enjoyed just a small degree of popularity with the electorate, the Mandelson scandal would not be such a dire threat to his leadership.  However, Starmer has quickly become the most unpopular PM since polling began and those vultures currently patting him on the back smell blood.

At what point will they opt to swoop and peck away?

The Gorton and Denton by-election is just over a fortnight away now and a Labour defeat in this previously safe seat could be the trigger.  The fact that the outcome for this crucial by-election is impossible to predict with any degree of accuracy, is symptomatic of Labour's decline under Starmer's premiership.  One poll has Labour in third place, behind Reform and the Greens.  Another has Labour holding the seat, albeit with a vastly reduced majority.  Bookies favour the Greens as victors.

If Starmer survives the by-election, there is another even bigger pitfall around the corner - May's elections.  He may have staved off defeat in almost 30 council areas by cancelling those elections, but there will still be thousands of seats up for grabs and, crucially, there are huge elections taking place in Scotland and Wales.  Nothing short of second place will do for Labour in Scotland (they are currently polling behind the SNP and Reform), but it is Wales that could present a crushing blow by dislodging Labour from power for the first time in the history of the Senedd.  Labour are currently trailing Plaid and Reform by a country mile.

So Starmer could limp on until May, but such dire election results are almost certain to finish him off.

Ministerial resignations will undoubtedly follow, and a challenger or challengers will arise.  However, replacing Starmer is not necessarily the solution to Labour's woes.  Replacing Johnson (twice) did little to reverse Tory fortunes, and the two current Labour frontrunners are tainted before they even throw their hats in the ring.  Rayner (the current bookies' favourite) has unresolved tax scandals and Streeting has his own close links to Mandelson that will come under increasing scrutiny.

It may be that a third candidate steals their thunder and swoops in to take the top prize.  Just imagine the calamity of Net Zero Ed in Number Ten, after having been decisively rejected by the electorate in 2015.  He'd immediately come under huge pressure to call an early general election, for democracy's sake.  Or perhaps we could get a Labour leader who breaks the glass ceiling on multiple fronts - the first female Labour leader, its first leader of colour, the first Muslim PM?  Shabana Mahmood's profile has risen inexorably in the past year, but her socially conservative views will draw the ire of establishment progressives, some of whom may finally begin to see the dead end folly of their Islamo-woke alliance.

Perhaps there will be another unforeseen candidate who takes the crown, but whatever happens there are no obvious quick fixes to the unmitigated disaster of this Labour government.