Keir Starmer chalked up 18 months as prime minister earlier this month, but there has been little cause for celebration in Downing Street.

The most notable event of the past week was his decision to ditch plans for the introduction of mandatory digital ID cards – Labour’s 13th major policy U-turn since the party’s landslide election victory in July, 2024.

What made this climbdown so damaging was the fact that it came just four months after Starmer himself had announced the policy with great fanfare.

“MPs are livid,” one disgruntled backbencher told HuffPost UK. “It’s another case of us being made to look like utter fools.”

The mood inside No.10 was not helped by more manoeuvring by health secretary Wes Streeting, who implored the government to “get it right first time” rather than announcing policies only to end up ditching them.

Chris Hopkins, political research director at pollsters Savanta, said voters are usually more forgiving of government U-turns than MPs and journalists.

But he added: “The sheer number of Starmer’s U-turns means this is no longer.

“What is worse is the political capital he tends to waste defending usually contentious policies, only to row back weeks later. It makes him look weak, indecisive and like he is very easily influenced by external noise.

“None of these characteristics are what people want from their politicians, let alone their prime minister, whose popularity stands no chance of recovering if the image he gives to the public is one of cluelessness.”

Elections in Scotland, Wales and in councils across England are now just 16 weeks away, and remain the moment of maximum danger for Starmer, should the opinion polls be proved right and Labour is hammered.

“The mood among MPs is febrile. I wouldn’t put tuppence on an outcome in any direction,” one veteran Labour figure said when asked if a challenge to Starmer’s leadership was now inevitable.

Against this inauspicious backdrop, senior Labour politicians are now rallying behind the PM in an attempt to see off any attempts to replace him.

His long-term ally and attorney general Lord Hermer went out to bat for his old pal at a meeting of the Tribune group of soft left Labour MPs on Tuesday night, telling them to “not throw away” the government’s achievements so far by ditching their leader.

HuffPost UK understands Hermer will continue this pro-Starmer outreach work to the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) in the months ahead, making the case for keeping the PM as someone who has known him personally for more than 30 years.

He will also stress that Starmer wants to deliver long-term change, therefore getting rid of him after just two years makes no sense.

Not everyone is convinced, however. A Labour MP said: “Hermer’s message seems to be ‘we’ve spent the last three years being as anti-soft left as we can possibly be, Keir doesn’t know any of your names, but please don’t dump him’.”

Transport secretary Heidi Alexander made clear her backing for Starmer at a meeting of the political cabinet this week.

She told her colleagues they needed to form a “Praetorian guard” around the prime minister to protect him from his opponents.

However, one senior figure pointed out: “The real Praetorian guards killed a dozen Roman emperors.”

Supporters of the PM believe that Robert Jenrick’s defection from the Conservatives to Reform UK presents Labour with a huge strategic opportunity.

With the right of British politics at war itself, they argue that Starmer is best placed to unite progressive voters who want to keep Nigel Farage out of Downing Street at all costs.

“What Jenrick’s defection shows is the contrast between the chaos on the right and the stability and consistency of the Labour government,” said one government insider. “Why would you throw away that big strategic advantage?

“The next election is going to be about who is most effective at winning over two voting blocs – the progressives and the right wing.

“There was a concern that Reform and the Tories could reach some accommodation before the election, but there’s no chance of that now because there’s so much bad blood between them.

“So there’s an opportunity for the PM and Labour to unite our voting bloc while the Tories and Reform are killing each other.”

A Labour source added: “It doesn’t matter what rosette they wear, these are the same people who failed Britain and took money out of people’s pockets, made them less safe and stoked division in our country.

“While the latest soap opera unfolds on the Tory and Reform benches, this Labour prime minister is delivering on the cost of living, bringing down waiting lists and keeping women and girls safe online.”

A cabinet minister said Starmer needs to focus on “getting on with the job”.

“What we’ve seen with Jenrick is another chapter in the chaos on the right that caused so much damage to the country under the Tories,” the MP said.

“In circumstances like that, our job is to get on with it. We’ve had higher than expected economic growth, good NHS waiting list figures, and Keir has stood up to Elon Musk on Grok. We do have a good story to tell.”

A shake-up inside No.10 has also delivered results, according to senior Labour figures, most notably the appointment of Amy Richards as Starmer’s political director.

A senior party source said: “Amy has really improved the political operation, which you can see through things like having trade union delegations and groups of MPs in to No.10.

“She’s also reached out to some of the overlooked shadow ministers in the Commons and Labour grandees in the Lords.”

There is no doubt, however, that Starmer still faces an uphill battle to hang on to his job.

One gloomy MP said: “Keir is already off my leaflets and my social media and I won’t even bust a gut to defend a government policy because what’s the point when he’ll probably U-turn on it?”

Starmer’s outriders are on the march – but is it already too late to save the PM?

2026 wasn’t supposed to be like this for Keir Starmer.

Downing Street had planned, according to the prime minister’s top spin doctor Tim Allan, a “strong start” to the New Year.

A series of announcements on how the government was going to tackle the cost of living were meant to get the embattled PM onto the front foot.

Unbeknown to No.10, of course, Donald Trump had plans of his own that would blow everyone off course.

Not content with bombing Venezuela and kidnapping the country’s president, Nicolas Maduro, and his wife, the US president has also ramped up the rhetoric on Greenland.

America will take control of the Arctic island “one way or the other”, according to Trump, to the horror of European leaders, including Starmer.

Throw in the uprising in Iran and it’s easy to see why the prime minister has struggled to seize the political initiative.

He did finally make some headlines on Tuesday night – but not in the way he had hoped.

To general bewilderment at Westminster, it was confirmed that the government was ditching its plans to make it compulsory to carry state-sanctioned digital ID cards.

That’s despite Starmer himself announcing the policy just four months ago with great fanfare.

For those understandably struggling to keep count, it was the 13th major policy U-turn the government has performed since being elected in July, 2024.

For MPs who were already sceptical about Starmer’s ability to improve Labour’s miserable poll numbers, it could prove to be the final straw.

“People who are not normally as bothered by this issue are livid,” one MP told HuffPost UK. “It’s another case of them being made to look like utter fools.”

A backbencher added: “We’re just running through the motions. The lights are on but no one is home.”

Other MPs are just glad they no longer have to pretend to support the policy.

“I never made a big deal of going out and defending it,” said one. “A lot of us just feel relief that we don’t have to flog it on the doorsteps.”

Supporters of digital ID cards on the Labour benches are also frustrated by how the latest climbdown has been handled.

One senior MP said: “It has ended up in the place that most MPs and the public advised it should start from.

“I hope the damage hasn’t been done as it’s a very positive initiative that will help us to transform public services, give the public more control over their data, and make the user interaction with government better.

“It doesn’t need to be mandatory as I’d be confident that the public will see huge benefits to having it so take up will be large.”

No.10 officials are desperately trying to put a positive spin on Starmer’s latest calamity, insisting it is part of a strategy of ditching unpopular policies to focus on putting more money in voters’ pockets.

They compare it to former Tory election guru Lynton Crosby’s infamous “get the barnacles off the boat” policy.

However, critics point out that only works if the prime minister isn’t the one responsible for putting the barnacles there in the first place.

The new year is only 14 days old, and Starmer once again finds himself fighting for his political life as a result of a wholly self-inflicted mistake.

One in three Labour voters say Keir Starmer should step down as prime minister, according to a new poll.

A JL Partners survey, commissioned by the Independent, asked Labour voters if they thought the party had a better chance of winning the next general election if they replaced Starmer – 38% of the 1,562 adults questioned said yes.

A further 39% said getting rid of Starmer would not impact the party’s hopes at the next election, while just 13% said Labour would do worse without the prime minister at the helm and 10% did not offer an opinion.

The poll found that Labour voters have even less faith in Starmer than the general public, as only half of the wider electorate think he should step down.

James Johnson of JL Partners told the Independent: “The results underline the degree to which all voters have lost faith in Keir Starmer. What will worry Downing St most is the belief that Labour would do better under a new leader is strongest among Labour supporters themselves.”

The survey asked which Labour figure voters would like to succeed Starmer.

Manchester mayor and former cabinet minister Andy Burnham came out on top with 19% of Labour voters backing him, even though he is not an MP and therefore not eligible to be party leader.

Former deputy PM Angela Rayner came out in second place with 10% of the vote, while deputy Labour leader Lucy Powell was not far behind on 9%.

Health secretary Wes Streeting and Energy secretary Ed Miliband were both on 6% while home secretary Shabana Mahmood was on 4%.

The education secretary Bridget Phillipson was put on 3% and chief secretary to the PM Darren Jones was on 2%.

The poll also ranked all seven of Labour’s prime ministers in history – and Starmer came out in last place.

The survey comes after the Labour campaign group Labour Together secretly conducted a poll on Starmer’s popularity among its members.

The findings are a real blow to the prime minister, just 18 months on from a landslide victory.