At two minutes before midday on Wednesday, Rachel Reeves paused at the entrance to the Commons chamber behind the Speaker’s chair to regain her composure.
She said one word to herself: “Smile”, before opening the door and making her way to the front bench.
This self-imposed pep talk – with her sister Ellie close behind her – was supposed to ward off a return of the tears shed before PMQs which were caused, according to the official line, by a personal matter.
It didn’t work. Her anguished, tearful face – a window on inner torment – was clear for the next 30 minutes and caused a wave of panic inside Government, the Labour Party and the gilt markets.
The unprecedented parliamentary scenes cut through way beyond the usual Westminster bubble.
Foreign tourists were seen on the Tube in London that evening sharing footage on their phones of Reeves in close up, shedding tears at the side of a Prime Minister who seemed unaware of her plight.
The reasons for her very human display of emotion have been analysed at length, and appear to be a combination of that personal matter, a ticking off from Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle and Sir Keir Starmer’s failure to explicitly back her when asked to do so by Kemi Badenoch during PMQs.
But what the incident also reveals is the depth of the crisis in confidence in a Labour government which reaches a full first year in office today.
The party’s backbench MPs and ministers have been left agonising over party management and the direction of policy coming from Starmer and his Chancellor.
Starmer has scored successes internationally – getting close to Donald Trump, and securing trade deals with the US, India and the EU.
But his ministers, MPs and party insiders want more from their leader.
After a week in which the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) was split over welfare reforms, and a new party was formed by Zarah Sultana which threatens to take votes from left-wing Labour supporters; they want Starmer to show he has a clear, compelling vision that will win Labour a second term.
Ministers think he will start his second year as Prime Minister engaging more with backbenchers after the shambles of the welfare bill – which was filleted live at the despatch box on Tuesday due to pressure from MPs.
A frontbencher said of Starmer: “He needs to be more touchy-feely… he needs to show his face more.”
And a Cabinet minister said “everybody knows” the PM needs to work to bring backbenchers on-side, adding: “Acknowledging there is a problem is the start of fixing it.”
The minister suggested that that Labour’s party conference in Liverpool in September was an opportunity to refresh its vision for the future.
“Summer recess isn’t very far away,” they said. “A lot of people will want a break, chance to come back in September, get things back into gear, and obviously, party conference gives Keir a chance to set out what we’ve achieved in the last year and what the plan is for going beyond that in more detail.”
But Labour MPs and insiders also want change inside Downing Street.
While chief of staff Morgan McSweeney is seen as “unsackable” – the PM is “too reliant on him” said one insider – there have been complaints about Claire Reynolds, Starmer’s political director who is supposed to be the link between No 10 and the back benches, for the way the welfare bill was handled.
Some MPs want Starmer to bring back Luke Sullivan, who was the Labour leader’s political director in opposition and is highly regarded inside the party.
They also want a Downing St job to be given to Keir Cozens, a former Labour Party director of political services who, despite being beaten by Reform to a seat at last year’s election, ran a strong social media campaign and is seen as an effective communicator.
Communication is currently seen as a weakness. “This week we’ve started rolling out named neighbourhood police officers for every constituency,” said a Labour MP.
“Why haven’t we been shouting about that? It’s massive. It’s like that Morecambe and Wise sketch, the Government is playing all the right notes, just not in the right order.”
A Labour insider said while there was talk of a reset, “to do that you have to reset purpose and policy which they seem unwilling to do, and you do it via resetting personnel which seems impossible given (in short-term at least) Rachel and Morgan both seem unsackable”.
Others are determined something should be done. “Back office changes should happen now,” a Labour MP said. “Luke Sullivan and Keir Cozens must be brought into the centre, [there must be a] new PPS [parliamentary private secretary] for the PM and new whips – all focused on relationships.”
The question of whether Starmer should hold a reshuffle before the summer recess in just over a fortnight’s time is also on the minds of many inside Labour.
“The reshuffle should be done before the summer break to give new ministers the summer to get up to speed and ready for [the party] conference,” one Labour MP said.
“Rachel is safe, and rightly so. [Work and Pensions Secretary] Liz Kendall and her ministers seem to have ducked the limelight.”
But while a ministerial shake-up is possible, insiders say it may not happen because the Prime Minister does not like reshuffles and embarking on one would be “fraught with danger” when the party is already going through such turbulence.
A Cabinet minister said: “I don’t think it’s impossible, but Keir is not a massive fan of them.”
Reeves’s job seemed more precarious than ever in the wake of the welfare bill climbdown – and the U-turn on winter fuel a few weeks ago.
But her tearful appearance in the Commons on Wednesday, as agonising as it was, seems to have actually cemented her position in Cabinet.
A Labour MP supportive of the Chancellor said: “The one good thing, as tragic as it is, is that the reaction from the bond markets showed how important Rachel is for our economic credibility.”
Starmer has now committed publicly to Reeves staying in the job until the election. But a party insider said that although the movement of the “gilt markets was a vote of confidence in her”, a change at No 11 could not be ruled out.
“The Government could pitch roll to a transition to [ Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster] Pat McFadden or maybe [Defence Secretary] John Healey over time,” they said. “But markets hate surprises.”
What is clear following this week’s events is that Labour’s 400-plus MPs are divided.
After the Government’s hollowed out welfare bill was passed at second reading on Tuesday, many Labour MPs filed out to the Commons terrace for drinks in the warm London evening.
While the mood among some was jubilant, there are big splits over the direction Labour should now take.
One member of the Government said: “Obviously it’s good for MPs to be independent-minded, but ultimately this is a ledger.
“We have a limited pot we can spend. If you have £5bn to alleviate poverty, is the best way of spending it to just undo the reforms we’d proposed? No.”
A backbencher said: “What people in the [Commons] chamber appeared to be asking for was not a change to the welfare reforms, but a different economic approach.
“My view is that we all stood on a manifesto that said we would not raise taxes on working people and that we would fix the foundations of the economy, so call me boring but I think colleagues should do what we were elected for.
“There also seems to be a lot of MPs, who want to be a superhero rather than just a cog in the machine. It’s ego over reality.”
A frontbencher said: “What a lot of those who opposed the reforms need to realise is what do they think Farage will do to the welfare budget? Do they think rebelling will make any difference to them keeping their seats?
“There are some in the PLP who most won’t be sorry to see the back of. A big problem has been that when we came in we were told we were the most impressive intake of MPs in the party’s history.
“I don’t know whether that put in people’s minds a false sense of entitlement but many believed it and are now thinking they can do what they want.”
After a year in power, insiders believe there is plenty that the Prime Minister and Government could boast about, such as the big increase in the minimum wage, the historic expansion of workers’ rights and renationalising the railways.
“The Government rightly has to eat a big shit sandwich this week, but let’s not pretend that there’s nothing good happening,” said a former Labour adviser. “On a swathe of areas the worst you can say is that they’re crap at communicating great things.”
The ex-adviser said one problem Labour had was that most of the Government’s policies have huge but long-term benefits and “people aren’t feeling the change now”.
But they added: “That is badly compounded by the lack of narration from the top, and consistent messaging as a through-line.
“Modern governing is about action and words. Keir believes in ‘just getting on with the job’ but the lack of connection means that individual good policies drift into the ether and bad ones can be landed by opponents as defining.
“It’s amazing to see voters talk about him in focus groups – they don’t know him, what makes him tick, what he is trying to do. Ironically given the recent fuss, the PM feels like a stranger to people on this island.”
Chris Hopkins, director of polling company Savanta, is similarly damning: “The first year of Starmer’s premiership has been nothing short of disastrous in public opinion terms.
“His personal ratings are as low as they could fathomably be after just 12 months in office, and his party’s commanding poll lead which led them to a historic victory has completely withered away.
“While the Conservatives have remained in disarray, Starmer would have hoped he’d hold onto his electoral coalition.
“However, an increasingly promiscuous electorate has judged Starmer early, observing Labour’s haphazard first year as being no different from the previous five under the Conservative’s merry-go-round of prime ministers.
“This leads them to look elsewhere, with untested parties such as Reform UK, the Greens and the Lib Dems seen as less risky when the status quo is providing no tangible benefits.”
Hopkins added: “All is not lost, but public opinion is far easier to lose than win back. This is no mid-term blip – this is voters deciding already that Labour are not delivering on the competence, stability and honesty they said they would.
“With little fiscal room to pull any policy rabbits out of hats, and increasing disquiet among its own backbench MPs, Starmer’s Government is looking increasingly like a one-term proposition unless he can somehow steer the ship in a far more positive direction.”
Luke Sullivan – who many Labour MPs want to see leave his post as a director at Headland Consultancy and return to No 10 – acknowledges that “not everything has gone to plan” during Starmer’s first year in power.
“However, the Prime Minister is a realist,” he adds. “He engages with the world as it is, not as he might wish it to be. He has already achieved notable successes, particularly on the international stage…
“What stands out is Keir’s capacity for reflection and constantly striving to improve… I have every confidence that as we enter the second year, he will be even more determined to stay focused on delivering for the country and will learn, as he always has, from any bump in the road.”
