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House of Commons<\/p>\nChris Mason,Political editor and <\/p>\n
Kate Whannel,Political reporter<\/p>\n
House of Commons<\/p>\n
Sir Keir Starmer is facing calls from senior ministers to sack whoever was behind briefings to the media that the PM is facing a leadership challenge.<\/p>\n
Energy Secretary Ed Miliband and Health Secretary Wes Streeting were both named as potential challengers in the anonymous briefings – now both are calling for whoever was behind them to be found and sacked. <\/p>\n
It comes as Sir Keir apologised to Streeting for the episode, which the PM is said to be “incadescent” about.<\/p>\n
It has intensified pressure on the prime minister’s chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, whom some – including senior figures in government – hold ultimately responsible for the briefings, as well as the overall culture inside No 10.<\/p>\n
One ally of the prime minister told the BBC: “Morgan is a proxy for Keir. They are coming for Morgan because they want to get Keir. This isn’t a parliamentary party battle, it’s a Labour elite battle.”<\/p>\n
Both Streeting and Miliband have stopped short of publicly criticising McSweeney, and on Wednesday Streeting made a point of praising his role in Labour’s general election victory.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, Streeting brushed off questions about McSweeney’s future saying it was “silly Westminster soap opera stuff” and “yesterday’s news”. <\/p>\n
Speaking to the BBC, Miliband said it’s been a “bad couple of days”, adding: “We’ve got to learn the lessons of this episode and say this is not where the focus should be.”<\/p>\n
He said he was confident the prime minister would want to find who the anonymous briefer was and “get rid of them if he can find out”.<\/p>\n
“He hates it when things get leaked, he hates it when cabinet colleagues get briefed against.<\/p>\n
“People listening to this programme might think ‘if he hates it, why can’t he stop it’.<\/p>\n
“The truth is, sometimes these things do happen. There are noises off and you can never quite know where they are coming from.”<\/p>\n
Miliband’s name has been discussed by some Labour MPs as another possible challenger to the prime minister.<\/p>\n
Asked if he would rule out returning as Labour leader, he replied: “Yes.”<\/p>\n
He added: “I had the best inoculation technique against wanting to be leader of the Labour Party which is that I was leader of the Labour Party, between 2010 and 2015. <\/p>\n
“I’ve got the T-shirt – that chapter’s closed.”<\/p>\n
Sir Keir apologised to Streeting in a brief phone call on Wednesday evening, however supporters of the health secretary are said to be irritated that briefing against him has continued. <\/p>\n
Those around the health secretary argue that “this kind of briefing culture followed Keir Starmer from opposition into government”.<\/p>\n
There are a declining number of advisers who were with Sir Keir in opposition and are still working for him now.<\/p>\n
McSweeney is one of them, and the most senior. He has been approached for comment and not replied.<\/p>\n
Speaking at Prime Minister’s Questions, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said Sir Keir had “lost control of his government… and lost the trust of the British people”.<\/p>\n
She said McSweeney was responsible for the culture in No 10 and asked if the prime minister still had confidence in him.<\/p>\n
Sir Keir replied: “Morgan McSweeney, my team and I are absolutely focused on delivering for the country.<\/p>\n
“Let me be clear, of course, I’ve never authorised attacks on cabinet members, I appointed them to their post because they’re the best people to carry out their jobs.”<\/p>\n
He added that “any attack on any member of my cabinet is completely unacceptable” and specifically praised Streeting for doing a “great job”.<\/p>\n
Speaking after PMQs, the prime minister’s press secretary told reporters the briefings against Streeting had come “from outside No 10” and that the prime minister had full confidence in McSweeney.<\/p>\n
The spokesperson refused to say whether there was a leak inquiry, but did say leaks would be “dealt with”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chris Mason,Political editor and Kate Whannel,Political reporter House of Commons Sir Keir Starmer is facing calls from senior…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":137530,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-137529","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137529","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137529"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137529\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}