It’s coup season – can the PM survive this nasty new strain of the sniffles?

Labour is once more showing its formidable talent for self-destruction, prompting Sean O'Grady to wonder if there are any potential cures that Keir Starmer and his troubled MPs can reach for

I’ve not long since had my winter jabs (and I hope you’ve had yours), so I thought myself quite well prepared for flu season.

However, and indulging in a truly dreadful pun, I find myself, like the nation, suddenly overtaken by what feels like “coup season,” instead. A bad dose of coup certainly cut short the careers of Tim Davie and Deborah Turness at the BBC, while even the King had a nasty brush thanks to his disgraced brother.

The symptoms included media chatter about the future of the monarchy, some overheated postings on social media and a case of heckling in Lichfield. It was quickly dealt with by quarantining Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, who, despite their extensive social distancing, had passed on the infection to His Majesty. A more permanent treatment averted more serious trouble.

Now it’s the turn of another great national treasure to submit to coup season. Labour is once again demonstrating its formidable talent for self-destruction. Although there was a nasty outbreak of sniffles about Keir Starmer’s leadership at the party conference, an unusually powerful speech by Starmer and the amateurism of his putative principal challenger, Andy Burnham, saw off the leadership challenge bug. Now, suddenly, it’s back, and the parliamentary party, by all accounts, is turning feverish.

Could a radical procedure requiring the emergency removal of Starmer be the answer? Well, it’s worth asking whether that really would cure the patient rather than kill it. The party would be presented with an unhappy choice to succeed him. They could have someone who retained his policies, but with superior presentation skills. That would be the Wes Streeting “offer”.

Or they could opt for someone with mildly different policies that likely won’t work any better, and run even more against both the manifesto and the national mood. That is more or less what Burnham and Ed Miliband would amount to, the soft left agenda that has never much appealed to the electorate, and with inferior presentation: see 2015’s infamous “EdStone”. It’s probably too early for Angela Rayner, who would be categorised as a revolutionary but experimental treatment for the sickly Labour government.

However, the rule book makes a successful coup both difficult and a potentially bloody process performed in front of a weary, bewildered nation. Some 80 Labour MPs would have to openly revolt, and, as Number 10 sources stress, Starmer would not go quietly.

A full leadership election would take weeks, and in a party visibly and dreadfully divided against itself. For the first time in history, the grassroots membership of the Labour Party would be able to choose a prime minister. They’re a capricious lot, too. What if they went for Lucy Powell?

The Labour Party, unlike the Tories, has also historically been bad at coups d’etat, either in opposition or in government. MPs tried and failed to rid themselves of Jeremy Corbyn, only to be frustrated by his popularity in the wider party. The last Labour prime minister to be this unpopular and this weak against a similar background of economic difficulties and broken promises was Harold Wilson back in the late 1960s. There, the main contenders all hated each other more than they despaired of Wilson.

In fact, Labour’s only successful coup was engineered by the fanatical followers of Gordon Brown against their most electorally successful leader, Tony Blair, in 2006. It might form a template for the removal of Starmer. It was a curious business whereby “allies” of Brown, the overwhelming and impatient favourite to succeed Blair, incrementally turned the pressure on the then prime minister by a series of moves that “boiled the frog” rather than messily stamping it to death.

The 2001 intake were reportedly especially keen to be shot of Blair. Coupled with public unpopularity about “his” wars, they made Blair’s position untenable. An unusual tactic was not to call for him to stand down immediately, but for him merely to state a date, which he reluctantly did. He was thus able to enjoy a victory lap, celebrate his decade in office and retire in June 2007. He was allowed to go with a degree of dignity unusual in competitive politics. Naturally, Brown went on to lose the next election.

What seems the most likely outcome is a series of leadership crises as Labour’s poll rating edges towards single figures, they suffer election losses, notably to Reform, and Labour MPs and activists grow ever more despondent and panicky. All that is survivable, however, as it has been for Labour premiers before (albeit not quite at such a nadir), provided the policies work and yield tangible results – an underestimated factor in such speculations – by around this time next year.

If, in other words, the graphs of economic growth, living standards, interest rates, confidence, small boat arrivals, NHS waiting lists and crime are all heading in the right direction, the leadership speculation will slowly but surely dissipate. If not, then frankly, it doesn’t matter that much who gets to be leader.