#Keir Starmer

#Keir Starmer

On Tuesday evening, friends of Sir Keir Starmer said his job might be under immediate threat and that they were particularly suspicious of Streeting's leadership ambitions. Speaking to the BBC on Wednesday, the health secretary said he could "not see any circumstances under which I would do that to our prime minister". He added that briefings to the press against him were "the worst attack on a faithful since Joe Marler was banished in The Traitors final".

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Pressure is mounting on Keir Starmer not to cut the UK's contribution to the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria after polling found 62% of Britons believe the government should maintain or increase its support. The prime minister must decide this year whether to maintain the UK contribution at 1bn or implement a cut in line with recent reductions to the aid budget. A cut of 20% has been rumoured.

Of course, Kemi might argue that she has proved the doubters wrong. She has become leader of the Tory party, after all. Though that's not the job it used to be. A small party becoming ever smaller. Where no sensible person really wants to be leader anyway. But credit where credit's due Kemi is the living embodiment of the Dunning-Kruger effect.

In his book about working as Tony Blair's chief of staff in No 10, Jonathan Powell warned of the danger leaders surrounding themselves with flatterers and yes-men. He quoted the Italian philosopher of power Niccolo Machiavelli on how it was one error into which princes are apt to fall because men take such pleasure in their own concerns, and so deceive themselves with regard to them.

Could it be that, like most narcissists, Nigel Farage is actually a bit thin-skinned? Surely not! Not our fearless Nige! The man who is never happier than when he can cast himself as the outsider a lone voice speaking truth to power. When he can control the narrative. A saviour rising from these streets. The politician who only knows he's alive when the cameras are rolling.

Keir Starmer saved his best for the fragile circumstances of a difficult Labour conference. It may not yet be enough to save him. All the same, this was by some way Starmer's most effective and certainly his most interesting conference speech since becoming Labour leader five years ago. Not a particularly high bar, it must be admitted, since Starmer is no great orator but at least the bar is one that he cleared. In the dire situation now facing Labour, this mattered a lot.

Cork's Morgan McSweeney is one of the most powerful Irishmen in the world as Keir Starmer's chief of staff. But now he faces mounting challenges