Starmer in freefall

Inside: A failed coup, Starmer's promise to fight back, and Andrew Marr on why the PM must go

Good morning, this is Finn, NS staff writer and editor of the Saturday Read. Welcome to our special (and early!) Labour crisis issue.

Britain could be facing its seventh prime minister in eight years. Labour is adrift in a post-Brexit, post-crash world. The government is run by a man who is cannibalising his own authority. And the sense – that perhaps Keir Starmer never had a purpose of his own – is becoming harder to ignore.

Below you will find all you need to navigate the mire, from our editor-in-chief Tom McTague, our political editor Ailbhe Rea, and editor-at-large Andrew Marr.

These articles are only available to New Statesman subscribers. The good news is that a subscription won’t cost you very much at all right now – five weeks for £5. That New Year’s sale I will not stop going on about continues, though it is stretching the definition of “New Year” rather thin. If you already subscribe – thank you, you will find everything you need here.

As ever, thanks for reading and have a great day. You can write in by replying to this email. I will be back on Saturday for a rundown of the week in full.

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1. “Its ideology is out of date”

Tom takes the wide angle, looking at Harold Wilson, Tony Blair, Brexit, the financial crash, and everything in between to ask the most pertinent question: how on earth did Labour end up here? His answers are compelling, but his conclusion threw me into somewhat of an existential spiral. Join me!

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2. “At the end of a very long day…”

Ailbhe gives the inside track – what exactly did Starmer’s remaining aides do after McSweeney resigned? And what was Anas Sarwar thinking when he called for the PM to go? But she is cautious not to get too caught up in the “who up who down” lobby weeds. Behind all of this a more serious reckoning is brewing: on sexism, on bullying, on the so-called No 10 “boys’ club”.

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3. “No way back”

Andrew is decisive. Even with all the risks and all the mitigating factors, there is no way forward with this Starmer-led government. It’s time for the Prime Minister to go. He is too damaged by the politics of Mandelson, too low in the polls, too weak without his closest aide. But is there a good way through this mess for Labour writ large?

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Thanks again, see you on Saturday. Don’t miss it: Gordon Brown writes on the Epstein files, John Gray returns with an unmissable essay, and I have dinner with some Arsenal fans.