THE Downing Street brainiacs have really done it this time.
A pre-emptive strike on would-be plotters has blown up in their faces.
Those trying to save Keir Starmer from the wolves have had their hands bitten in a senseless act of provocation.
And their vulnerable PM is now more exposed than ever to the gnashing pack of rebellious Labour MPs.
Wes Streeting — whose wings Starmer’s allies clumsily tried to clip — is flexing his muscles with the new-found confidence of being unassailable.
Even colleagues who loathe the Health Secretary and his planet-sized ambition had to admire him aceing his TV interviews yesterday.
There is not yet blood on the No 10 carpet, but there are growing calls for heads to roll in Starmer’s top team.
Many Labour insiders see this botched bid to strangle mutiny at birth as symptomatic of the paranoia stalking Downing Street’s corridors.
For months Westminster’s favourite parlour game has been placing bets on how long Starmer will last.
The Budget, where Starmer and Rachel Reeves will break their manifesto pledge by raising income tax?
The May local elections, where hundreds of Labour councillors are walking into the mincer?
More people I speak to than not believe the PM’s insistence he will fight the next election is increasingly fanciful.
It is remarkable, 16 months from bagging that thumping majority — yet the scale of that win is exactly why many Labour MPs are so fed up.
How can a government armed with such a massive majority consistently be so rudderless?
Why does a PM with such a big mandate often appear a prisoner to events outside his control rather than shaping the political weather?
Viable leadership candidates are hesitant to go over the top.
Streeting (until yesterday) was too Marmite.
Shabana Mahmood still needs time to prove her mettle in the Home Office.
It is too soon for Angela Rayner.
Which is why Downing Street’s anonymous briefing blizzard — insisting Starmer would fight any threat to his position — was so bizarre.
One insider said it left MPs and aides on all sides “grasping at shadows, looking over their shoulder for where the next threat will come from”.
The next few months have pitfalls aplenty, and the need for grip from Starmer will only get stronger.
