Keir Starmer is stuck in a catch-22. If he is to avoid the threat of continual leadership challenges, the Prime Minister will need to deal with what every poll shows are the public’s three overriding concerns: the cost of living, rampant illegal immigration and the state of the NHS. But if serious progress is made in any of these areas, it is likely to turn the minister responsible into a viable leadership candidate. Let’s call it catch-25.

Rachel Reeves at the Treasury has a monumental task and is politically tied to the Starmer project, so she can be ruled out. Of the other two key issues, most progress has been made in reducing NHS waiting lists, the task of Wes Streeting. Which may explain why a senior Downing Street aide chose, on Tuesday evening, to launch a calculated briefing oper

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