Keir Starmer deployed the entire Labour machine – cabinet ministers, whips, even Gordon Brown – to shore up his support ahead of what was set to be a critical day for his premiership on Tuesday. And it worked.
Labour MPs trooped dutifully through the voting lobbies to block Conservative attempts to refer him to the privileges committee – a process that would have dragged out the Peter Mandelson row and been a painful reminder of Starmer’s original sin of appointing the former Labour spin doctor and minister as his man in Washington.
