Labour’s crushing defeat this week in a Senedd byelection in the south Wales valleys town of Caerphilly – it finished a distant third in its former bastion behind Plaid Cymru and Reform UK – has cranked up the heat again on UK prime minister Keir Starmer.
The temperature may get a few degrees hotter on Saturday, if Lucy Powell meets expectations and is chosen as Labour’s deputy leader to replace Angela Rayner. Starmer sacked Powell as Commons leader only last month, while his Downing Street operation subsequently tried and failed to keep her out of the deputy leadership race.
Now, barring a surprise win by education secretary Bridget Philipson, Powell appears poised to be elected as Labour’s second in command this weekend in a vote by party members, who seem prepared to inflict a blow on the prime minister.
“If Lucy gets elected as deputy leader, that shows the existence of an anti-regime majority in the party,” said a well-placed Labour source, speaking earlier this week.
READ MORE
“That means you have a campaign that is looking for a leader.”
Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham was once fancied as a potential alternative should Starmer’s position come under threat; the Labour leader faces a defining moment next May when devolved elections are held across Wales and Scotland.
Burnham is not currently an MP, however, which could stymie his ambitions should a vacancy arise if Starmer is forced out following a Labour hammering in May.
Could youthful Bristol MP Darren Jones – still unfamiliar to much of the British public but seen as a rising star inside Labour – emerge a more plausible contender?
“He could well do,” said the Labour source. “There aren’t very many others who are obvious. [Health secretary] Wes Streeting’s parliament seat is too vulnerable to become leader. And possibly so is [home secretary] Shabana Mahmood’s.”
Jones (38), a saxophone-playing former corporate lawyer who had an impoverished upbringing in Bristol, has risen steeply through the ranks since Labour’s general election win in the summer of last year.
He was effectively number two to chancellor of the exchequer Rachel Reeves at the Treasury until September, when he was promoted in a reshuffle.
Now as chief secretary to the prime minister and the cabinet member who oversees government delivery by running the cabinet office, Jones is Starmer’s right-hand man.
The Irish Times observed him in action this week at a private gathering of Labour members in central London – a fundraising dinner for Labour MPs Chris Elmore and Gareth Snell.
Jones gave the main speech, which he delivered confidently while walking around the room with the microphone in his hand, like a daytime television host. He is said to be in demand for such dinners, but only has time for a couple each month.
Jones, who is seen as being on the right wing of the Labour Party in the Blairite mould, told the Labour members present that British people wanted their country to change. But he suggested the UK state through its civil service wasn’t up to the job of delivery.
“Part of my job as chief secretary to the prime minister is to build a new state with better outcomes, and not just tinker with the old state,” he said. “Fewer words, more action.”
He acknowledged that Labour was in the fight of its life with Reform, and the elections next May were crucial.
“The threat of populism is not just a threat to the way our country works and the things that we value, it’s a threat in all our constituencies too,” he said, an acknowledgment that MPs such as Snell in Stoke and Elmore in Wales faced battles to keep their seats in a future Westminster election.
Jones said there was internal debate at a senior level in the Labour Party about whether to focus on Reform as its main opponent, or if such attention only helped the Nigel Farage-led outfit to flourish.
He said it felt “jarring” to give so much attention to a party [Reform] with just five MPs, but ultimately it had been decided that Labour “have to be much more muscular in attacking Reform”.
He said UK government communications needed to be overhauled to put less emphasis on the detail of policies that had been devised, and more instead on the impact of those policies on the lives of members of the public.
He said he told government communications officials to “get out of London, find people whose lives are changing, and put them on camera” instead of just politicians.
Jones’s message was well received by the Labour members at the dinner, albeit amid weary resignation about the Caerphilly hammering they knew was to come.
He also has his critics in government.
Jones, whose posh accent belies his modest upbringing, was a prefect at school and is still viewed in similar terms by some of his colleagues who have dealt with him in spending negotiations.
“If you want a glimpse into the dystopian AI future where the world is run by autocratic robots devoid of emotion or humanity, then you need to spend five minutes in a meeting with Darren Jones,” a UK government source told the Sunday Times in spring.
Some in his party feel that Starmer’s exit, if it comes in May, might be too soon for Jones. Yet many others appear to believe that his time will eventually come.
