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Good morning. The mutiny has begun.
Yesterday afternoon, the health secretary, Wes Streeting, resigned from government, declaring he no longer has faith in the leadership of Keir Starmer. His announcement – widely believed to be a precursor to making a run at Downing Street – followed days of intense speculation around the prime minister’s position after last week’s disastrous local elections.
Hours later, Labour backbencher Josh Simons dramatically announced his resignation from his Manchester constituency, with the expressed desire of Andy Burnham taking up his seat in a byelection, returning to parliament and contending for No 10. Burnham confirmed he will seek to run in the byelection but, like Streeting, stopped short of openly gunning for the top job.
Despite the pressure on him to resign, Starmer insists he is (for now) not going anywhere – and exactly how many Labour MPs really want him to go is unclear. The prime minister has an automatic right to contest any leadership contest under party rules, and appears intent on exercising it.
For today’s First Edition, I spoke with Alexandra Topping, Guardian political correspondent, about Starmer’s chances of remaining in No 10, and our economics editor, Heather Stewart, about whether – despite the headwinds – his government’s economic programme might be showing early signs of success. But first, the headlines.
Five big stories
UK news | Almost every critic of Keir Starmer has accused the prime minister of not being sufficiently “bold” in his policy choices. But what would his possible replacements actually do differently?
Politics | Nigel Farage bought a £1.4m property in cash shortly after receiving a £5m personal gift from the crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne.
US news | China’s president, Xi Jinping, has warned of “clashes and even conflicts” with the US over Taiwan after meeting Donald Trump in Beijing.
Social media | Google has denied breaching the Online Safety Act by promoting a “nihilistic” suicide forum associated with 164 deaths in the UK where it is supposed to be banned.
Ukraine | Russian missiles and drones pounded Ukraine for a second day, almost continuously, with Kyiv bearing the brunt of the assault.
In depth: ‘Big ideological moves aren’t really the Keir Starmer way’
Thursday should have been a good day for the government. Two separate announcements showed the economy grew more than expected, and that waiting lists fell in the NHS. Instead, the civil war brewing inside the Labour party boiled over. Wes Streeting, from the Blairite side of the party, finally publicly confronted the prime minister over his future by resigning from the government. He stopped short of announcing his own campaign to replace Starmer, instead calling for a leadership contest with “the best possible field of candidates”.
So far, no contest has formally started. Few Labour MPs, at least publicly, still appear to support Starmer’s leadership, but there is no consensus on who should replace him. In the vacuum, chaos reigns: clusters of journalists stake out Downing Street demanding to know what is going on, and when. Away from the eyes of the public, their phones buzz with speculation from sources and politicians about who could follow Streeting.
Some commentators interpret the health secretary’s resignation as a strategy to get Starmer to step down, compounded by his apparent lack of the 20% of Labour MPs needed to support his candidacy in any leadership election. But Starmer, less than two years into the job, is defiant. His approach, essentially “come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough” tactic, is to dig in – and there are some figures to back it up.
Survation polling for LabourList shows that Starmer would easily win a head-to-head election contest against Streeting. He would lose narrowly to Angela Rayner (who on Thursday was cleared by HMRC following an investigation into her tax affairs), but the prime minister would beat many other candidates, according to the numbers. The only candidate who would present a major challenge? A returning Andy Burnham.
Furthermore, despite everything, Ipsos figures indicate that the country would still prefer to be led by Starmer than the Reform UK leader, Nigel Farage. So could the prime minister cling on?
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The economic case
Many Starmer supporters argue that his government has delivered far more than it is given credit for. On Thursday, figures from the ONS showed that the UK economy unexpectedly grew 0.3% in March – beyond what economists expected – despite the shock of the US-Israeli war against Iran. The chancellor, Rachel Reeves, was quick to say that a challenge to Starmer’s leadership would put that progress at risk.
“The GDP figures were fairly strong, although they are far from a boom. But they support the argument that Rachel Reeves makes on the economy that things were heading in the right direction before the war in Iran,” says Heather Stewart. “The chancellor also took action in the budget to cut inflation, which meant markets were predicting interest rate cuts at the start of the year. That’s helpful for people with mortgages, businesses wanting to borrow, credit card bills. There was a feeling that we were turning a corner.”
But all of that momentum has been lost with the US and Israel’s attacks on Iran, which sent UK energy prices surging once again despite the Starmer government doing all it can to stay out of the conflict.
Raising the minimum wage, scrapping the two child benefit policy, improving the performance of the NHS, strengthening workers’ rights, and successively managing to hold off the worst instincts of the US president, Donald Trump, are other achievements, say supporters. But for many MPs and members of the public, this has not been enough.
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Quiet success on immigration
There has been progress on issues important to the public that the government appears less keen to shout about, says Alexandra Topping.
Annual net migration is expected to be close to zero this year – down from around a million in the wake of the pandemic. The number of small boat crossings in the English channel has fallen modestly, and there has been a drop in the backlog in processing asylum seeker claims. But this rarely features in government rhetoric.
“Regardless of whether you think it should or shouldn’t be, immigration is a significant concern to the electorate. Voters care about it but we aren’t hearing much boasting at all about this,” says Alexandra. “It’s interesting that Nigel Farage isn’t talking about it now because the numbers are falling. But it’s something that the Labour party itself feels deeply uncomfortable with – and that hampers people at the top of the party from talking about it.
“The government really lacks confidence to be able to trumpet the stuff that it has done.”
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Starmer holds on
If, somehow, Starmer manages to weather the storm, he will need to make a fresh pitch to the country to win back support. At the start of the week, the prime minister said that it was no longer a time for incrementalism – a major push on closer relations with the EU has been rumoured, which could see a deal that creates a new customs union with the bloc and a removal of trade barriers.
But Alexandra thinks this could further inflame divisions within the Labour party. “It’s hard to see what Starmer could actually do that would satisfy the party. Remain MPs would want to see him make promises to go back into the customs union or the single market. That would cause absolute havoc with the ‘red wall’ MPs looking over their shoulders at Reform.”
Other potential leadership candidates are likely to pitch a bold vision if there is a contest. But Alexandra says we should not hold our breath.
“Ultimately, big ideological moves aren’t really the way Starmer works,” she says. “Unless he’s going to have a personality transplant and completely change the way he does things, I don’t think we are going to get them.”
What else we’ve been reading
Award-winning journalists Kai Wright and Carter Sherman have teamed up to co-host the Guardian’s new flagship US video podcast, Stateside. The first episode kicks off with former Georgia legislator Stacey Abrams talking about the state of voting rights. New episodes will drop every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Yassin El-Moudden, newsletters team
Do not miss the latest On the ground report from Matthew Cassel for Guardian video. This time, he is reporting on the fallout of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah. It’s gripping, as always. Patrick
Against the backdrop of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, Unrwa’s concerted efforts to prevent the erasure of archival documents gave rise to a secret mission, as retold here by Jason Burke. Yassin
Today, we are releasing the top 40 to 21 of our 100 best novels of all time. There is also a special event at Conway Hall in London on 19 May to discuss the list – livestreaming tickets are also available. Patrick
Despite bans from leading film festivals and its reputation for slop, recent advances in AI filmmaking are even beginning to captivate the attention of heavyweight names from Hollywood. Yassin
Sport
Football | The English Football League has indicated that Southampton could be kicked out of the playoffs and that the date of the Championship playoff final may be delayed if the club is found guilty of breaching regulations.
Golf | Defending champion Scottie Scheffler was in a seven-way share of the lead after the first round of the US PGA Championship, while Rory McIlroy struggled, finishing on four-over after four straight bogeys.
Tennis | Jannik Sinner reached the semi-finals of the Italian Open on Thursday after seeing off Andrey Rublev and establishing a new record of consecutive wins in Masters 1000 tournaments.
The front pages
“Burnham bids to topple Starmer, but he must win byelection first”, is the Guardian’s splash today. The Times runs with “Burnham makes move” and the Telegraph writes “Burnham launches bid for No10”. The i Paper says “Streeting and Burnham start leadership battle to force out Starmer”, and the FT’s top headline is “Starmer’s battle begins as Burnham handed route back to Westminster”.
The Mirror says “And so it begins”, the Sun splashes “Burn to run” while Metro, above a picture of the challengers, sums it up as “Rivals”. The Daily Mail writes “Labour’s great pretenders”, and the Express says “Where we need vision, we have a vacuum”.
Something for the weekend
Our critics’ roundup of the best things to watch, read, play and listen to right now
TV
Wrestling With Trump | ★★★★☆
In this punchy documentary, satirist Munya Chawawa steps into the ring to trash-talk Trump’s obsession with apeing the world of WrestleMania. The result? A bodyslam. Chawawa speaks to Maga folk who can call Trump a “blue collar billionaire” without batting an eyelid – a sign of the astonishing power he has to warp the senses, collapse contradictions and reconstruct a reality that suits him better. Just as in some wrestling matches, nothing is true except what you are told you see. Lucy Mangan
Stage
Lenny Henry: Still at Large | ★★★★☆
In this new standup show – his first tour since 2010 – Lenny Henry says he generally turns down reality TV offers. He said yes to Shark! Celebrity Infested Waters (no, me neither) because he wanted to pay for an extension. At first one wonders what home improvements Still at Large might be funding: it is difficult to get a handle on its purpose. There is some new material but also old ground being re-trodden, and then you realise this show is a victory lap showing just how far he has come and how long he’s been doing this. Nick Ahad
Music
Kevin Morby: Little Wide Open | ★★★★☆
Badlands isn’t so straightforward. It’s driven by big, punchy, slightly distorted drums, but the music that plays over them is strangely laid back. On the one hand, the lyrics talk about “the big disaster we call home”, but on the other suggest that “heaven is a place on Earth beneath the golden sky”. It sets the tone for an album that, in the best way, can’t quite work out what it thinks, conjuring a series of grey areas. But a sense of equivocation seeps into everything. Alexis Petridis
Film
The Christophers | ★★★★★
A vision of haughty Englishness up there with Gosford Park and Phantom Thread as Ian McKellen and Michaela Coel pair up in the double act of the year. McKellen plays an irascible, dyspeptic old painter called Julian Sklar, living solo in a chaotic bohemian townhouse in the capital’s Bloomsbury district. Opposite him, Coel is at the top of her game as Lori Butler, a charismatically self-controlled former art student fallen on hard times and hired as Julian’s assistant by his grasping adult children. Her job: to find a series of much talked-about paintings that Julian once showed while he was still a big name, but then withdrew from sight. Radiating mystery, she may be his worst enemy, worst assistant, biggest fan or closest ally. Peter Bradshaw
Today in Focus
Labour, u ok hun?
Guardian columnist Rafael Behr talks through a tumultuous day for Labour and Keir Starmer – following the resignation of health secretary Wes Streeting, and the renewed possibility of a Westminster comeback for Andy Burnham.
Cartoon of the day | Stephen Lillie
The Upside
A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad
This story of a former teacher finding herself ruling the roost at the world’s only continental king penguin colony is a wonderful dispatch from Douwe den Held and Anastasia Austin in Chile. Assisted by her daughter Aurora, 72-year-old Cecilia Durán Gafo spends her days patrolling the beaches of Useless Bay to protect the birds from people and predators alike.
The colony reemerged in 2010 as a handful of penguins nested the land, and the population has since grown to nearly 200. It is one of more than 15,000 private protected areas and Durán’s approach appears to be paying off – “last year, 23 chicks survived – a record”, she says.
Sign up here for a weekly roundup of The Upside, sent to you every Sunday
Bored at work?
And finally, the Guardian’s puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day. Until Monday.
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