Andy Burnham moved a step closer to Downing Street last night after Sir Keir Starmer was accused of ‘losing the plot’ over the threat to his leadership.

The damaging claim from one of the Prime Minister’s own senior MPs came after he unexpectedly appointed two ‘relics’ of the Tony Blair era – former prime minister Gordon Brown and former deputy leader Harriet Harman – in a desperate effort to save his premiership.

And on Saturday night, one backbencher added to the mayhem by saying that if a Cabinet minister did not challenge Sir Keir by Monday, she would try to stand as a stalking horse herself to trigger a leadership fight.

The intervention by Catherine West – dubbed a ‘stalking donkey’ by one Labour source – came as the number of Labour MPs openly calling for the PM to quit following the party’s drubbing in last week’s local elections passed 30. As Sir Keir left

MPs baffled by bringing Mr Brown and Ms Harman back into the heart of No 10, Manchester MP Graham Stringer told The Mail on Sunday: ‘If Keir ever had the plot, then he has lost it. It is a parody of the politics of 16 years ago.

‘Neither Harriet nor Gordon are able to solve an impossible problem – how to improve a very unpopular Prime Minister.’

Other party sources variously described the appointments as ‘nuts’, ‘ineffectual’, the ‘last act of a zombie government’ and ‘the night of the living duds’.

Mr Burnham, the mayor of Manchester, is preparing to mount a bid to return to the Commons within the next seven days, which would allow him to launch a challenge to Sir Keir’s leadership.

But Ms West, the MP for Hornsey and Friern Barnet and a former junior Foreign Office minister, sowed more confusion when she said she was putting the Cabinet ‘on notice’. 

She claimed ten fellow MPs were prepared to back her leadership bid, but was ‘confident’ she could secure the 81 needed to trigger a formal contest, representing 20 per cent of the parliamentary party.

However, the main leadership camps said she was not acting on their behalf.

Mr Burnham’s supporters said he would announce his intention to stand for an undisclosed seat in the North West soon.

If Sir Keir tries to block the move – as happened earlier this year when Mr Burnham tried to stand in the Gorton and Denton seat – then a ‘battalion’ of Labour MPs will publicly call on him to reverse the decision.

If he still refuses, pro-Burnham members of the Cabinet will threaten open revolt.

Mr Burnham is understood to be reserving the ‘nuclear option’ of quitting as Manchester mayor while he ‘waits to be let in’.

Polling results released on Saturday gave Mr Burnham the only positive approval rating of any senior Labour politician. 

The survey, by Opinium, put Mr Burnham on plus 20, followed by Defence Secretary John Healey and Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper on minus 6.

Last night, one Labour source said: ‘I expect Keir to say that Andy can come back – but not until the end of the Parliament.’

In other developments on another dramatic day in politics:

• Cabinet ministers Yvette Cooper, Lisa Nandy, Ed Miliband and Shabana Mahmood all tweeted neutral post-election statements which pointedly failed to give the PM their backing;
• Sir Keir prepared another ‘reset’ speech to be delivered on Monday – although it is being kept secret from even his most loyal ministers, sources expect it to include a call for closer ties to the EU;
• Allies of Health Secretary Wes Streeting said that as Labour leader he would be able to see off both Reform and the Greens – given Labour held on to Redbridge council in his constituency, but lost overall control in Tameside, where Angela Rayner is MP;
• MPs were waiting for Ms Rayner to offer a coded critique of Sir Keir’s performance as a prelude to her leadership bid – amid claims she had lost momentum following reports about her being ‘obliterated’ in a Commons bar;
• Kemi Badenoch planned to use the Conservatives’ success in the capital as a ‘bridgehead’ towards snatching the London mayoralty from Labour’s Sadiq Khan;
• Reform leader Nigel Farage pledged a ‘robust’ defence of the Union if he becomes PM.

Sir Keir has resisted calls for his resignation after the ‘tough’ local election results, saying he was ‘not going to walk away and plunge the country into chaos’.

And he claimed his appointments of Mr Brown as a special envoy on global finance and Ms Harman as an adviser on tackling violence against women and girls were ‘very future-looking’.

He said Ms Harman’s job would be about ensuring ‘every woman has the opportunities she deserves’; while Mr Brown would help find more money for defence ‘based around international mechanisms’, and ‘build the strong economy of the future’. 

Sources said the plan to appoint the pair had been hatched in January in anticipation of last week’s dire results.

But Mr Farage said of Mr Brown’s appointment: ‘An unpopular prime minister who lost a general election is now seen by Starmer as being the saviour.’

And former Labour MP Karl Turner, now an independent, said: ‘There is always a role for Gordon in the party. He is the party. But he can’t teach it to Starmer. You either have it or you don’t. And Starmer doesn’t have it.’

Mr Burnham’s supporters insist he can win the seat he has identified, despite Reform’s rampant performance in the North. 

One ally said: ‘We’re not idiots. We’re not just going to throw him out there. We’ve been conducting our own private polling. He’ll win.’

But Graham Stringer, an MP since 1997, warned Mr Burnham’s plans could cause even more mayhem. 

He said: ‘His fox is shot. Reform’s surge in the North means there is no safe seat. This is all about Andy’s career not the party.

‘If he gives Reform a platform in Manchester by quitting as mayor he will make himself very unpopular. 

'I think he has worked himself up into running simply because he has had too many false starts and now thinks he has to go for it.’

An ally of Mr Streeting said that Reform and Green wins in Mr Burnham’s Manchester heartland would ‘take some of the stardust off Andy’. 

Sources said the Health Secretary would not launch a bid for leader while Sir Keir was PM but would if he was toppled.

One Labour source also warned that MPs ‘will not accept a coronation for Andy Burnham’.

Wall of silence as Cabinet ministers fail to show support for floundering PM 

By Gabriel Millard-Clothier, Political Reporter

 There was a telling lack of support for the Prime Minister in the lukewarm statements issued by Cabinet ministers following the local elections humiliation.

Three months ago, the Cabinet rallied around Sir Keir Starmer after Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar called for him to go.

In the aftermath of Labour’s drubbing last week, MPs lined up to demand the PM’s resignation. Among scores of others, hard-Left power broker Louise Haigh said he must quit if he can’t deliver ‘significant and urgent change’.

But Shabana Mahmood, Lisa Nandy, Ed Miliband and Yvette Cooper all noticeably declined to support the Prime Minister in statements made on social media platform X.

Home Secretary Ms Mahmood wrote: ‘Good public servants, colleagues and friends have lost their seats.’

Ms Nandy, the Culture Secretary, and Ms Cooper, the Foreign Secretary, similarly recognised those who lost their seats but did not explicitly back their leader.

Mr Miliband, the Climate Secretary, reflected on voters’ ‘anger at a broken economic and political status quo’.

All four are big beasts in the Cabinet and would play key roles in any leadership tilt.

Mr Miliband, the MP for Doncaster North, has already privately told Sir Keir to set out a timetable for his departure, but this is his first public display of disloyalty. 

He regularly tops the polls of Labour members and is expected to play a ‘kingmaker’ role in a leadership contest.

The Climate Secretary is said to want to be Chancellor in return for his backing.

Ms Nandy is also a big force on the hard Left of the Labour Party – despite being hot favourite to be sacked in any reshuffle. She commands significant support among Left-wing factions on Labour’s backbenches.

Ms Mahmood is a leading figure in the ‘Blue Labour’ faction and is popular on the Right of the party.

The lack of Cabinet support shows the Prime Minister’s waning popularity on both flanks of his party, and the peril that he faces from all sides.