THE POLITICAL KNIVES ARE BEING SHARPENED OFFSTAGE. There are significant leaderrship jitters on both sides of the aisle and although action is not widely expected until after the local elections in May, clever conspiracists strike before their intentions become clear.

Labour’s polling trajectory continues downward: YouGov now places Labour as low as 17% in its weekly voting intentions tracker, tied with the literally hopeless Tories and trailing Reform UK on 27% (Aymon Bertah, GB News, 1 November 2025.) Interestingly the same data shows that my contemporaries are flocking to the Greens who are clocking up 40% of the voting intentions of 18-24year olds. By-election results in Runcorn & Helsby and Caerphilly show voter volatility against an unmistakable drift away from Labour in its traditional heartlands.

Starmer’s danger is not an organised factional revolt — the hard left remains marginalised and of decreasing significance within Labour as so many younger members defect to the Greens — but there is a creeping loss of confidence among the “soft left” and trade-union flank. Without a loyal ideological guard, Starmer is vulnerable to the same sort of ebb of authority that precedes most Labour coups. The likeliest challenger would be a senior minister from the pragmatic left, offering continuity with conscience, rather than a real policy rupture. Bizarrely, Milliband seems to remain Labour Party members’ favoured candidate after Burnham and Rayner imploded. Bizarrely? Well, he is an idiot, but admittedly that does not seem to hole candidates beneath the waterline and now seems to be on course to becoming a critical criterion for consideration as a future “leader.” Can sandwich-eating skills thwart Milliband again?

Badenoch’s jeopardy feels more immediate. Half of Conservative members now say Badenoch should not lead the party into the next election (YouGov, 29 October 2025.) After last spring’s loss of 600 council seats, her own frontbenchers reportedly set May 2026 as a leadership deadline (George Parker et al., irritatingly paywalled at the Financial Times, 31 October 2025) but can she hold on until then?

Two traditional Tory factions are circling: the right, which views Robert Jenrick as the authentic voice of post-Badenoch conservatism and the one-nation moderates who look to James Cleverly as a potential unity figure. Both camps know the mechanism for a confidence motion still exists and is now available to potential assassins.

The Right’s reshuffle

Within the Conservatives, meanwhile, Reform’s rise is producing contradictory instincts: outward dismissal, private dread and sporadic talk of a pact. The electoral map now resembles a three-way fracture rather than a pendulum swing.

Uncivil liberties

The government’s Digital ID proposal — pitched as a modernisation of public-service access and border security — has reopened a classic British fault line between liberty and order. Critics from both right and left warn that it would entrench surveillance culture. Opposition figures are already calling it “Blairism with biometrics”, which captures both its ambition and its danger (and strangely actually makes this seem more attractive to me!)

The test for Starmer’s administration will be whether it can frame this as pragmatic reform rather than authoritarian drift. Lose that argument and civil-liberties dissent could join economic fatigue in fuelling Labour’s internal opposition.

Dogger, Fisher, German Bight:  South to South East, Storm Force 10, occasional defections expected

The next six months will define both Starmerism and Badenochism. Labour is currently a government failing successive simple competence tests with no-one able to set a heading, the Tories are an opposition failing to avoid the Rocks of Irrelevance. Both depend on the same electoral clock but a potential radical shortening of the fuse on internal loyalties.

My guess: one or other will face a leadership challenge in the New Year.