Lonely at the top: who are Keir Starmer’s allies as daunting May elections loom?

Then there are ministers who, while not necessarily close friends, are highly trusted. One is Pat McFadden, the work and pension secretary, often the person sent out on the most bruising morning broadcast rounds, for example after the Gorton and Denton byelection.

In a similar group is Darren Jones, whose loyalty and sheer organisational zeal – more or less every media interview with Jones includes a reference to his love of spreadsheets – has seen him made the Downing Street chief secretary, in charge of cross-departmental organising.

There are two concurrent stories here. On the first, whether Starmer has enough people steadfastly in his corner to keep him in the job, the answer is: probably not. But there is also the idea of how much his hinterland and friendship might help, if and when the political blow lands. Here, he feels better protected than some.

One of the notable elements in the 2024 biography of Starmer by the journalist Tom Baldwin was the repeated mention of the sheer depth of non-political friends who still surround the prime minister and their very obvious loyalty.

“They are very important,” says one person who knows Starmer well. “He definitely gets as much if not more advice from his extra-parliamentary friends.”

Spanning various sections of Starmer’s life – school, university, the law plus the five-a-side football he has played for decades – some take an enjoyably sceptical approach to their friend’s current job.

Speaking to Baldwin before Labour won the election, Colin Peacock, whom Starmer first met after rescuing him when some school bullies were sellotaping Peacock to a gravestone, said he expected his old friend would “miss his old life”.

He went on: “When it all goes wrong, I’ll be there for him, of course. I’ll be there going: ‘Told you so, told you, told you.’”

All that said, life at the political peak is so relentless that it has had an impact even on some of Starmer’s relationships.

He entered No 10 with a series of much-trusted staffers around him, most notably Morgan McSweeney, the strategist who charted Labour’s election win, but also a series of others.

Now they are pretty much all gone, bar Ben Nunn, a longstanding aide and friend who remains a regular presence in No 10 despite now working for Rachel Reeves, the chancellor.

McSweeney departed amid the Peter Mandelson scandal. Others, including Paul Ovenden, Starmer’s head of political strategy, and Steph Driver, his head of communications chief, departed in circumstances which, while varied, did not show much effort by Starmer to protect them.

This is a seeming paradox to Starmer that even some allies point out – for someone so loyal in some parts of his life, he can also be ruthless, even dismissive. As his political foes line up against him, he will hope those around him remember the first trait.