A grim week for Starmer – but things could be about to get worse

He is, usually, a doughty defender of the government and he still was.

But he was managing to put a noticeable distance between himself and the news No 10 had been hawking their former director of communications Lord Doyle for a job as an ambassador.

Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper went further – she was publicly aghast at this particular revelation.

Each example here felt to me like straws in the wind – easily dismissed in isolation but alongside everything else an indicator of the prime minister's declining authority.

Then there was this week's cabinet meeting, where ministers were happy to let it be known to journalists that they had expressed concern about the government's relationship with the Civil Service, after the unceremonious dumping of the top official at the Foreign Office, Sir Olly Robbins.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves and Health Secretary Wes Streeting were among those who spoke up on this.

There is nuance here - the prime minister himself had expressed concern too, we are told.

And of course cabinet ministers will fret about this - they deal daily with their permanent secretary and senior civil servants and rely on them to deliver their agenda.

But again, and yes it's subtle, there was a willingness to let it be known the consequences of No 10's actions had been raised.

We then had Labour backbencher Jonathan Brash telling GB News Sir Keir's time was up and his colleague Dan Carden on BBC Newsnight being a little less blunt but nonetheless saying "there is definitely a question about the future of the Labour government."

The left-wing political magazine the New Statesman chimed in too. Its editor, Tom McTague, a thoughtful writer not known for hyperbole, said of Sir Keir: "The clamour is growing: he cannot do the job."

His article quoted Boris Johnson's public reflection when the time was up for him in Downing Street, when he said "when the herd moves it moves".

It was a reference to his parliamentary party, the crucial electorate for any party leader: it is their MPs who decide their fate.

And this week, the Labour herd is chuntering; it is chewing the leadership cud again.

It is worth reflecting that the fundamentals that brought about Labour's big wobble over Sir Keir in February are still there, as are the fundamentals that meant he survived that moment.

Let's take each in turn: the government is deeply unpopular and Sir Keir is more so.

This, alongside the evergreen critique made of this government, by those on its own side and its opponents, that it lacks a clear sense of direction and purpose, is the fundamental that makes Labour folk ponder how long he should have left.

But there is another fundamental too. The party cannot agree who it would like to replace him and plenty of the leading candidates have tricky things to overcome.

The former Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner is still in a wrangle with the taxman.

The mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham isn't an MP.

And Streeting, the health secretary, is trying to shake off his connection and previous friendship with Lord Mandelson.

The prospect of a leadership race, while in office, horrifies many Labour MPs because critics would label it self-indulgent and naval gazing – and it would deliver a new prime minister with no mandate from the electorate.

It feels then something like that classic philosophical paradox of an immovable object encountering an unstoppable force: logically impossible because the existence of one precludes the other.

So far at least, the fundamentals standing in the way of toppling the prime minister have proved stronger than those arguing for change.

The huge question now is whether that changes when the Labour Party confronts the likely grizzly reality of the electorate's verdict early next month.

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