Keir Starmer’s speechwriters experienced mixed emotions at last week’s Cabinet away day.

They had prepared a carefully-crafted message for the prime minister to deliver to his senior ministers as he welcomed them to Chequers.

But the PM surprised – and impressed – them by not using the words they had prepared for him, choosing instead to make a “freeforming”, 20-minute speech setting out his thoughts on Labour’s first year in power and where he believes his government needs to go next.

“It was very good,” said one of those present. “He spoke from the heart about whose side we’re on. You could feel in the room that it went down well.”

Lucy Powell, leader of the House of Commons, told Starmer: “Your speechwriters are great, but it’s better when you speak from the heart.”

The PM told the assembled gathering that while Labour had undoubtedly made mistakes since last year’s landslide election win, they had also done things like introducing free school meals, breakfast clubs and 4.5 million NHS appointments.

“He said lots of people in Westminster won’t appreciate how those policies make a massive difference to ordinary people across the country,” said one eyewitness.

“After a year in government, he said he realised that the Tories get 96% of things wrong and focus on the 4% of things they get right, whereas Labour gets 96% of things right but agonise over the 4% we get wrong.

“We have a tendency to beat ourselves up about the things we get wrong, but he said we need to focus on the things we do that are improving the lives of the people who put us here.”

Starmer spoke about his own upbringing, about his brother who died on Boxing Day last year and his sister who is a carer.

“It makes me feel incredibly privileged to do this job, but I never lose sight of the fact that we are here to make life better for ordinary people,” the PM said.

The overall message was that while the first year in office had been necessarily tough, Labour is now entering the next phase of its time in government.

“We’ve done a lot and we need to shout about that more, but there’s lots more to do before the next election,” said one No.10 source.

“It was about building towards the message that we’ll have at party conference in September. We were elected on a promise of change, we did the tough stuff in the first year and now is the time to set out the positive change people are going to feel over the next four years.”

Although Downing Street officials deny the two things were linked, removing the whip from four Labour MPs on Wednesday afternoon also felt like an attempt by Starmer to draw a line under his first year in power and look to the future.

Many Labour MPs were stunned by the swift brutality of it, but others were delighted to see perennial rebels like Brian Leishman and Neil Duncan-Jordan made an example of.

“There are lots of loyal MPs who were absolutely spitting feathers at the behaviour of some of the members of the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) , so there was quite a lot of pressure from them for us to do something,” said one insider.

Others, however, were baffled by the move, with one Labour source bemoaning the “randomness, the odd timing and the lack of any accompanying strategy” behind the decision.

Some point the finger at Claire Reynolds, Downing Street’s political director, who encouraged the government whips to threaten rebel MPs with suspension if they voted against the welfare cuts bill last week.

Despite Starmer gutting the legislation of many of its key measures in order to placate the rebels, 47 of them still trooped through the No lobbies.

One No.10 insider said of the disciplinary action: “We couldn’t do it during the welfare stuff, we had to wait for the dust to settle on that.

“But if you are actively organising against the government then there has to be consequences.”

But a Labour source said: “Presumably they internally have been saying ‘we need to take this action, otherwise we look ridiculous at not being able to follow through on the threats we made before the vote’.

“So a bad strategy for persuading the PLP ends up with a bad strategy for disciplining the PLP.

“If Claire Reynolds is making threats to people and demanding they be sacked to fulfil her threats, I’m not sure any of that is being instigated by [No.10 chief of staff] Morgan McSweeney, Keir or [chief whip] Alan Campbell, even if they’re going along with it.”

An already-tumultuous week then saw Diane Abbott lose the Labour whip for a second time after she doubled down on the comments about anti-semitism which led to her original suspension from the party.

It was a timely reminder for Starmer that for all his talk about a brighter future, the present has the unfortunate habit of delivering a sharp dose of political reality.

As MPs prepare to leave Westminster for the summer next week, the prime minister will hope that his second year in power is better than his first.

But all the evidence of the past 12 month suggests he and his cabinet should buckle up for another bumpy ride.

Sometimes a moment can capture the political mood better than any speech or parliamentary vote.

Leaving 10 Downing Street en route to his ministerial car before prime minister’s questions on Wednesday, a walk of only a few steps which he has made hundreds of times in the past year, Keir Starmer stumbled.

As his right leg began to give way, the prime minister instinctively reached out to grab the nearest railing to steady himself.

In the grand scheme of things it was a minor mishap. No harm done, let’s just move on.

But for a PM under pressure and whose very political existence is now the subject of open speculation at Westminster, it wasn’t a great look.

If he can’t even leave the house without nearly falling flat on his face, you could hear his critics thinking, how on earth can he run the country?

Underlining how difficult things are right now for Starmer, worse was to follow less than an hour later, as he ploughed his way through PMQs seemingly unaware that his chancellor was in tears beside him.

We may never know the real reason for Rachel Reeves’ distress, but the message it seemed to convey to the country was unmistakeable: just a year on from Labour’s landslide election victory, this is a government which already seems to be emotionally and politically spent.

The previous evening, the PM had been forced to make yet another U-turn in order to ensure the government’s flagship Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payments Bill was passed at second reading.

The fact that it no longer contains anything at all on personal independence payments demonstrates how much Starmer had to give away to win the support of enough of his rebellious MPs.

The climbdown meant that the £5 billion of savings the welfare reforms were supposed to deliver have now disappeared, leaving the chancellor to plan yet more tax rises to fill the gap.

As a backdrop to Starmer’s first anniversary in the job, it was far from ideal.

“They’ve got a huge majority, but they haven’t got a narrative and the whole thing’s a mess,” said one gloomy Labour veteran.

“I was talking to a senior businessman who said on the day-to-day stuff, the government is actually getting a lot of things right. But fundamentally it’s a shitshow.

“This weekend we should be celebrating the first anniversary of a famous victory, which was an outstanding achievement, but instead we’ve gone straight to the massive hangover.”

Starmer felt compelled to warn his cabinet this week about briefing against Morgan McSweeney, the PM’s chief of staff who has become a lightning rod for criticism of the No.10 operation.

Reeves’s strict adherence to her fiscal rules, which are aimed at keeping a tight rein on government spending, has also been blamed for the government’s woes.

Labour MPs feel worn down by having to defend unpopular government decisions like removing winter fuel payments from 10 million pensioners, only for the PM to eventually U-turn on them when the political heat gets too much.

One senior Labour figure told HuffPost UK that Starmer has it in his gift to lift the gloom, but he doesn’t have any time to waste.

“They’ve got three years to recover,” he said. “It’s perfectly doable, but they need to be getting back on track very quickly. Luckily, the Tories are still all over the place. Reform are obviously a problem, but it is a recoverable situation.

“Basically, Keir needs to get a grip. He has to shake things up and some people’s egos will get bruised in the process, but in the end we’ve got to move on.

“Does he want to be remembered as the man who re-established the party and set us on a forward path or does he want to be remembered as the man who blew it?”

One Labour MP said the government needs to get on and deliver the change that the country voted for a year ago.

“There has to be an improvement in living standards,” he said. “If we don’t make people feel better off, then we will suffer at the next election.”

The MP warned that Nigel Farage will be the main beneficiary if Starmer doesn’t get his and the government’s act together soon.

He said: “Nobody said it was going to be easy. There’s no political patience out there. People feel worn down and want to see improvements tomorrow, and if they don’t then they’ll vote for Reform.”

There is anger inside No.10 towards the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP), who many believe are either unable or unwilling to accept the parlous state of the public finances means tough decisions need to be made.

In the wake of the welfare reform fiasco, one MP was even overheard saying: “I don’t understand why this means tax rises when it’s only a few billion pounds.”

Flushed with the success of forcing the PM to U-turn on welfare cuts, some rebels made it clear they will now try to force him to scrap the two-child benefit cap – a move that would come with a £3.5bn price tag.

That prompted one No.10 insider to observe: “They are aware they’ve just spent that money, right?”

A cabinet minister told HuffPost UK it was time for some Labour backbenchers to come into the real world.

“You can’t have a situation where MPs club together and force a decision that costs £5bn and then dump all the consequences on the chancellor,” he said.

“If these things are collectively decided, they need to be collectively owned. The PLP can’t think this is a free lunch, that we’ll move on next to something like the two-child benefit cap and say the chancellor will have to deal with that. It’s been very unfair to load all that on her.

“Labour MPs think somehow somebody else will deal with it, that you can tax more or borrow more and it’ll all be fine. But when you tax private schools, farmers, businesses, there’s always a big pushback. There isn’t a free little lever that you can just pull.”

French president Emmanuel Macron is in London next week to address parliament and hold talks with Starmer on how France can work with the UK to stop asylum seekers crossing the Channel in small boats.

Bringing down immigration was a key Labour pledge in the election, and yet the number of asylum seekers making the perilous journey is at a record high.

Party strategists believe fulfilling that promise is essential if the government is to show voters that it is delivering.

But Chris Hopkins, political research director at pollsters Savanta, said it may already be too late for Starmer.

“I’m not sure he can turn things around,” he said. “It’s too early to completely write them off – we’ve seen far stranger things than a Labour comeback – but public opinion is far easier to lose than win back and the prospects for this government don’t look good.

“They lack the policy agenda to capture voters’ imagination, they lack the fiscal headroom to bring about tangible changes to people’s lives, and they’re not proving themselves to be united, competent or strong either.

“It’s no surprise at this stage that so many 2024 Labour voters have buyer’s remorse, and when the Tories and Labour fail, the untested alternatives suddenly look significantly less risky for an increasingly promiscuous electorate.

“Labour’s electoral coalition was always going to be difficult to hold together, but I think the speed and scale of the collapse from such a strong position is a surprise, and exactly what the country didn’t need from its next government.”

Starmer will spend his anniversary weekend away from Downing Street, and his allies insist he will not be brooding on the turmoil of recent days.

“He’s not someone that sits and dwells on things,” said on senior government official. “There are obviously lessons to be learned, but he’s focused on what we can do to fix things rather than spend all his time chewing over the past week.”

Labour’s first 12 months in office have been marked by a series of self-inflicted errors, gaffes, controversies and climbdowns.

The next election may not be until 2029, but Starmer and those around him know that he cannot afford for the next year to be as bad as the last one.