Keir Starmer will be a better Labour prime minister than he is leader of the opposition

The fracas over the Commons’ Gaza ceasefire vote was a useful lesson to the PM-in-waiting of how brutal politics can be, and that it is lonely at the top. But, says Andrew Grice, Starmer has actually emerged from it all in a stronger position

Keir Starmer ‘can look a bit boring – but so did Clement Attlee’ (PA Wire)

Keir Starmer dodged a bullet by avoiding the biggest Labour rebellion of his leadership and more frontbench resignations. Although he emerged as the winner from the Commons chaos and procedural fiddling while Gaza burned, the Labour leader has lessons to learn from a week that damaged our political class.

Starmer denied threatening Lindsay Hoyle, the Commons speaker, with the prospect of losing his job if he did not call Labour’s amendment on a ceasefire in Gaza and Israel. If Hoyle had not broken with precedent to do so, up to 100 Labour MPs might have voted for the Scottish National Party’s more strongly worded motion. But Labour’s denials do not rule out the possibility that one or more Labour figures outside of Starmer’s office reminded the speaker that he would need the votes of the party’s MPs to be re-elected after the general election.

Tom Baldwin, author of the revealing Keir Starmer: The Biography, which was published this week, notes that the highly sensitive Gaza issue has forced Starmer to spend more time talking to his MPs. “He had often been told by staff he needed to do more of such meetings, but they aren’t the kind he much enjoys,” Baldwin writes. Starmer had better get used to it: he will need his MPs’ support if he becomes prime minister.