𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

It has been one of those weeks where red blooded politics comes face to face with the quagmire of Whitehall. A kind of super smoothie where opposing ingredients are blended together and you never quite know what the outcome might be.

In Olly Robbins and Keir Starmer we had two components which, on the face of it, appear quite bland. But mixed together with the red hot tabasco of Peter Mandelson we got something altogether quite volcanic. Sir Olly’s bombshell appearance before the Foreign Affairs Select Committee really set the agenda.

Every MP I spoke to this week talked about how it would affect Sir Keir’s future as Labour leader and Prime Minister.

The overwhelming view, as you can imagine, was not positive.

Here’s a snippet of some of their thoughts.

Shadow Cabinet member: “His time is up and his exit is speeding up.”

Labour backbencher: “Won’t last the summer.”

Ex-Labour minister: “I can’t believe I’m saying this but it just gets worse.”

Those were the clean ones.

Tube strikes from Wednesday onwards meant that Westminster felt quieter.

I bumped into an ex-Cabinet minister Tory on a deserted train one day where, after a brief chat about Starmer – “he’s a slippery liar” – she said she was heading back to her constituency for the weekend.

It’s where many MPs will be for the next fortnight as they have been told to expect the prorogation of Parliament on Tuesday.

This means the end of the current Parliamentary session, and MPs will not meet again until the King’s Speech on May 13, when the Government will set out its plan for the next 12 months.

That’s likely to diffuse the immediate pressure on Sir Keir, especially as he will dodge another PMQs duffing-up by by Kemi Badenoch

However, he faces local, Scottish and Welsh elections on May 7 where Labour could suffer huge losses.