As Sir Keir Starmer wearily boarded his flight to Beijing on Tuesday evening, he may have taken some solace in the fact that the leadership ambitions of one of his key challengers had been thwarted – at least for the time being.
While the full consequences of the decision to block Andy Burnham from standing in the Denton and Gorton by-election are yet to properly play out, Sir Keir had for now personally ensured that the Greater Manchester mayor doesn’t represent such an immediate threat to his leadership.
However, a bit like a game of whack-a-mole, as one leadership rival departs, another has popped up again.
Moments before Sir Keir was due to take off, news emerged that his former deputy prime minister Angela Rayner had declared she is “not dead yet”, effectively planting her flag as the leadership candidate of the left this week.
For some this may come as a surprise from a politician who just a few short months ago was forced to resign from cabinet for failing to pay a £30,000 tax bill for the stamp duty on her flat in Brighton. Usually these sorts of scandals are terminal for political careers, or require a long period of reflection in the wilderness.
But, for the former deputy prime minister, that does not appear to be the case.
This was a point made to The Independent by friends and allies of Ms Rayner at the Trades Union Congress gathering in Brighton last September, less than 48 hours after her departure.
“She will be back sooner rather than later. For some politicians, the normal rules do not apply,” they said.
The reason for her reascendency, though, is less to do with Ms Rayner’s virtues and more to do with the shortcomings of others, in particular the prime minister.
After almost 20 months of dire headlines, worse poll ratings, 13 U-turns, unpopular policies and what seems to be a chaotic and directionless government, a growing number of Labour MPs want a change at the top.
There is a growing desire for what one Labour MP described as “ABS” – ‘anybody but Starmer’.
And in typical fashion on these occasions they are looking for something different to what they have got.
The Tory psychodramas are a good example of this. When Theresa May was ousted, the party opted for charisma with Boris Johnson. After the “excitement” of the Johnson and Liz Truss premierships they went for boring managerialism with Rishi Sunak.
Now Sir Keir’s own brand of boring managerialism is what Labour MPs and many members want to change. So essentially they are looking for politicians with personality and charisma as a replacement.
Labour MPs look at Reform with Nigel Farage and the Greens with Zack Polanski and see two leaders with big charismatic personalities who are riding high in the polls.
It is then no surprise that Ms Rayner – who certainly has a big personality – is one of the frontrunners along with other more charismatic figures like Wes Streeting, Shabana Mahmood and Mr Burnham.
The hope is that personality may cut through in the polls, but with Burnham out of the running for now, MPs need alternatives. Mr Streeting and Ms Mahmood are seen as too rightwing for many tastes in Labour which brings them back to the resurgent Ms Rayner.
While some think she was “tarnished” with her involvement in trying to block an end to the two child benefit cap and cut welfare as a minister, she would argue that she fought against these things behind the scenes but was bound by collective responsibility.
It may well be that her only serious rival on the left is energy secretary and former leader Ed Miliband.
But if there is to be a coup, Labour MPs need a good idea of who and what they are replacing Starmer with. If they turn to Rayner it will be because of personality in the first instance and a hope that she can deliver the soft left agenda the party hankers after.
