UK Political Turmoil Overshadows State Opening of Parliament

It is quite something when two blokes having a cup of coffee can generate more headlines and conversation than the King coming to parliament for the main ceremonial event of the parliamentary calendar. Both these things are happening this morning. The prime minister has met the Health Secretary Wes Streeting in private – a meeting offered by Sir Keir Starmer to cabinet ministers after Tuesday's cabinet meeting and an offer Streeting took up. It was a very short meeting - under 20 minutes - and we may not know what happened in Number 10 immediately. And then, not long afterwards, the King will arrive in Westminster for the State Opening of Parliament, in which the sovereign reads out the government's planned new laws for the year and a bit ahead. This ceremonial occasion was scheduled for this week precisely because government figures anticipated a rough set of election results and a splash of political tumult afterwards. They hoped it would help the prime minister to relaunch, reset and reboot his premiership, again – and would keep MPs away from Westminster and so make plotting harder for a few days because the Commons doesn't sit just before the King's Speech. In something of an awkward holding position. The prime minister's authority has been repeatedly pulverised, but no contender has come forward with the 81 MPs needed for a leadership challenge and the Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham has not yet found himself a parliamentary seat to contest. "Wes doesn't have the numbers and Andy doesn't have a seat, for all this noise," one supporter of the prime minister told me. Streeting's supporters dismiss all this as spin and point out that plenty of the MPs that have called for the prime minister to resign are backers of other potential candidates, not least Burnham. Overt, public politicking while the King is in the building is seen as a bit of a no no, but the current situation is widely seen as unsustainable – something will have to give. Some believe once the State Opening is done, Wes Streeting will go for it, perhaps on Thursday. Certainly some of his supporters hope he will, having gone over the top themselves in publicly saying the prime minister is finished. Meanwhile, the Trade Union and Labour Party Liaison Organisation, which does what it says on the tin, has issued a statement this morning saying "it's clear the prime minister will not lead Labour into the next election." Beyond that there are disagreements between unions about what to do now.