Angela Rayner’s exit & Starmer’s hasty Cabinet reshuffle is like an episode of The Traitors… now PM must watch his back
IT may not be an imposing castle and there’s no Claudia Winkleman but Downing Street has become the stage for a real-life version of The Traitors.
Sir Keir Starmer set the scene for weeks of vicious plotting when he banished his faithful deputy from the Cabinet.
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His gushing letter to Angela Rayner after she was forced out was true to the hit TV series.
It could be summed up as: “So sorry, Ange. I really like you and I really, really hope it isn’t you. But I’ve got to go with my gut.”
But it hasn’t washed with her admirers who now see her as a standard bearer for Labour’s Left.
The problem for the PM is whether his ousted sidekick will be recruited by The Traitors — a clique of MPs and activists hellbent on revenge.
They think Sir Keir is the real traitor — a class traitor — and are ready to unleash anger and resentment that has been building up over the past 14 months.
‘Knives are out’
When Ms Rayner quit as Deputy PM and Housing Secretary, she also stood down as Labour’s Deputy Leader — an elected position.
The search for her successor will become a divisive and bloody battle for the soul of the party.
One activist declared: “It’s going to be carnage. The knives are out already — and many of them are aimed at Starmer’s back.
“Most MPs can’t stand him or his politics, and over the past week their hatred has gone off the scale.”
Ms Rayner and her supporters are not the only people to harbour a grudge against the PM.
Her departure forced him into a hasty Cabinet reshuffle in which several of her colleagues were also thrown under the bus.
One minister dumped in Sir Keir’s shake-up even vowed privately: “I’m going to f*** him up.”
The deputy leadership race could now turn into a proxy war to destabilise the PM and find his successor.
There are whispers about a stalking horse to pave the way for Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham to steal the crown and, bizarrely, that Ed Miliband is pondering a bid for a leadership comeback.
The scandal has also exposed the Prime Minister’s indecision and weakness — flaws he once levelled at Boris Johnson.
Sir Keir allowed Ms Rayner to cling on to her job for eight days after it was revealed she had avoided paying £40,000 stamp duty on her swish new seaside property at Hove, East Sussex.
It was clear that at the very least she was guilty of rank hypocrisy and had to go.
One of his biggest tests will be the Budget on November 26
You’d think after being gifted £2,400 of free spectacles, Sir Keir would have seen what was coming.
But he left it to an ethics adviser to reach the inevitable conclusion — and even then, the PM didn’t sack her but let her resign.
Sir Keir knows he must fix the economy and stop the boats if he has any chance of winning the next General Election.
But the Left has been angered and emboldened, and their opening salvos are likely to be fired at the Labour Conference in Liverpool later this month.
One of his biggest tests will be the Budget on November 26, when drastic action is needed to plug the £50billion black hole in Britain’s finances.
Normally, all the pressure would be on Rachel Reeves to deliver. But the PM sidelined the Chancellor last week to take personal charge of economic policy.
He appointed his own economics guru and poached Ms Reeves’s geeky number two Darren Jones as well as the Chancellor’s chief tax adviser to join his No10 team.
One disgruntled source said: “Keir has made it clear he plans to own the next Budget.
“If that’s the case, he can shoulder all the blame when it goes down like a bag of cold sick.”
Cabinet heavyweight Pat McFadden has been put in charge of forcing through welfare reform, months after benefit cuts were ditched amid a backbench rebellion. His task just got a lot harder.
Time to get a grip
Another big mission — which eclipses any TV challenge Claudia could set — is to tackle the asylum crisis.
Voters are desperate to see this Government deliver on its promises soon
Sir Keir staged a clear-out of the Home Office at the weekend, removing Home Secretary Yvette Cooper and two of her ministers following their failure to stop the boats and close migrant hotels.
Hardly a surprise, as Sir Keir has had more success removing ministers than asylum seekers.
He has ushered in tough-talking former Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood — who supports chemical castration for serious sex offenders — to head up the dysfunctional department.
The PM knows that if she is unable to get a grip of the nation’s number one concern, he won’t be given time to send in a third team.
Voters are desperate to see this Government deliver on its promises soon.
Sir Keir returned from his summer break to declare he had begun “phase two” of his plan to change Britain.
If it continues like this, there won’t be any time for a phase three.
Voters will ask Sir Keir to reveal whether he’s a Faithful or a Traitor.
Then banish him from Number 10.
REFORM MP Lee Anderson wants schoolkids to wave Union Flags and sing the National Anthem at morning assembly.
Not so much Cool Britannia as School Britannia.
WHILE the nation was entranced by the Angela Rayner scandal, the Green Party elected a former hypnotherapist as its new leader.
Zack Polanski once claimed he could help women who wanted larger breasts by unlocking the power of their minds.
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Now he’s turned his attention to growing his membership before persuading the rest of us to reverse Brexit.
I can only imagine how he’ll do that.
Perhaps he’ll mesmerise us into a second referendum with an election speech which goes: “Look into my eyes, look into my eyes.
One, two, three . . . you’re back in the EU.”
