• Jess Phillips, has resigned from the government, calling for Keir Starmer to quit and saying she has grown tired of seeing “opportunities for progress stalled and delayed”. Four ministers quit on Tuesday and joined nearly 90 MPs to have called for the prime minister to go. But Starmer told his cabinet earlier in the day that he would fight on as prime minister, saying the threshold for a leadership challenge had not been met. Zubir Ahmed, a health minister, and Alex Davies-Jones, the minister for victims and tackling violence against women and girls, resigned shortly after Phillips. The communities minister Miatta Fahnbulleh was the first minister to resign from government, calling the PM him to quit.

• The health secretary, Wes Streeting, widely seen as a leadership hopeful, will meet Keir Starmer on Wednesday morning, the Press Association understands. It is understood that Streeting will not say anything after the meeting that could distract from the King’s Speech.

• David Lammy, the deputy PM, urged the MPs trying to get rid of Keir Starmer to back off. He said: “Let’s get on with the business of running this country and government. That’s what I’ve been doing today, and that’s what the prime minister’s been doing. And I urge colleagues to step back and not benefit Nigel Farge and Reform.”

• Marie Rimmer, the Labour MP for St Helens South and Whiston, said she will not give up her seat for Andy Burnham. She said: “Recent speculation regarding my parliamentary constituency seat is completely unfounded.”

• More than 100 Labour MPs signed a letter saying this is “no time for a leadership contest”. This means the pro-Starmer camp is outnumbering the anti-Starmer camp – but only just. According to the LabourList tally, 88 Labour MPs have said the PM should go.

The health secretary, Wes Streeting, who is widely seen as a leadership hopeful, will meet Keir Starmer on Wednesday morning, the Press Association understands.

It is understood that Streeting will not say anything after the meeting that could distract from the King’s Speech.

The Times said he is expected to discuss the “turbulence” gripping the party and how Starmer will “get us out of this mess”.

David Lammy, the deputy PM, has urged the MPs trying to get rid of Keir Starmer to back off. In a clip for broadcasters, he said over the past 24 hours – which has seen a series of backbenchers calling for Starmer’s departure, was well as four ministers and several ministerial aides resigning – not one rival has been able to get the names needed to mount a challenge.

Lammy said that the only people benefiting from this crisis were Nigel Farage and the populist right.

He went on:

What I say to colleagues is, look, let’s just step back, take a breath, let’s remember that we have the king’s speech, we are in government to do a job of work.

It’s been 24 hours now and nobody has come forward to put themselves forward in the processes that exist in the party. No one seems to have the names to stand up against Keir Starmer. And for those who are suggesting that he should stand down, they should say which candidate would be better.

Let’s get on with the business of running this country and government. That’s what I’ve been doing today, and that’s what the prime minister’s been doing.

And I urge colleagues to step back and not benefit Nigel Farge and Reform.

That’s all from me for today. Nadeem Badshah is now taking over.

Labour has urged London assembly officials to investigate the Green party leader, Zack Polanski, after he admitted that he may have failed to pay the correct council tax while living on a London houseboat, Ben Quinn and Jamie Grierson report.

Keir Starmer has released a list of 26 people who are getting peerages. While this might seem like a rather extreme way of currying favour in a leadership crisis, this honours list has nothing to do with Labour’s electoral plight. This is a political honours list and these peerages are going to people who already have hereditary peerages but who lost the right to sit in the Lords when the House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Act became law in March.

The act meant that hereditary peers were no longer entitled to the 92 seats in the Lords they were allowed after Tony Blair’s government got rid of most hereditaries in 1999. This was a concession to stop the Lords blocking the bill.

As a further concession to stop peers blocking Starmer’s bill, the government agreed that some of the 92 remaining hereditaries would be given life peerages so they can continue to attend on the basis of being life peers. There are 15 Conservatives, nine crossbenchers and two Labour peers on today’s list.

Another three hereditary peers got a life peerage upgrade (or downgrade, if you’re a fan of the class system – hereditary peers tend to be proper aristocrats, whereas life peers are generally clapped-out MPs) in an honours list in December.

This is from Pippa Crerar, the Guardian’s political editor.

EXCL: Zubir Ahmed, health minister and another close ally of Wes Streeting, quits calling for Keir Starmer to step aside.

Feels like the Streeting bid could be on

Here is the letter.

Josh Halliday is the Guardian’s North of England editor.

Marie Rimmer, the Labour MP for St Helens South and Whiston, has now released a fuller statment confirming that she will not give up her seat for Andy Burnham. (See 2.14pm.) She says:

Recent speculation regarding my parliamentary constituency seat is completely unfounded.

Andy Burnham and I have not spoken since the 2024 general election campaign, when we were campaigning in Altrincham. Suggestions that there have been recent discussions between us about my seat are absolute nonsense.

I have a great deal of respect for Andy, he has done some incredible work in Manchester, but I am not planning to stand down for him or for anybody else. I was selected by my constituency Labour party and elected by the people of St Helens South and Whiston to represent them in parliament, and I intend to honour that mandate.

At a time when there are serious challenges facing our country and our communities, my focus remains solely on serving my constituents and supporting stable leadership in the prime minister. I do not believe that internal chaos or leadership speculation serves the interests of the Labour party or our country. We were elected to govern and to deliver for working people, and that is where our attention should remain.

Any decisions about the future representation of this constituency would only ever be made in consultation with my constituents and my constituency Labour party.

Bethan McKernan is the Guardian’s Wales correspondent.

Rhun ap Iorwerth has been sworn in as first minister of Wales after Plaid Cymru’s Senedd electoral victory ended 100 years of Labour hegemony and held off Reform UK.

Ap Iorwerth was confirmed after a plenary vote today with the support of the 43 Senedd members of his party and two Greens.

Plaid Cymru ended Labour’s century-long electoral dominance in Wales in last week’s elections, winning the most seats in the newly expanded 96-seat parliament. Reform, which had hoped to be the biggest party, won 34 seats, and Labour came third with just nine seats, marking a definitive end to the party’s grip on its birthplace.

The former Labour first minister Eluned Morgan lost her seat, triggering a leadership contest. Ken Skates, the Senedd member for Fflint Wrecsam and former cabinet secretary for transport, has taken over as interim leader.

Under Wales’s new and more representative electoral system, at least 49 seats are needed for a majority. No party was likely to win that, but Friday’s results put Plaid Cymru in a comfortable position to form a minority government.

Ap Iorwerth previously told the Guardian he would seek out mature cooperation from all opposition parties on a case-by-case basis, and that his administration would press the UK government for extra powers over policy areas such as policing and justice, rather than engaging in political rows with Westminster.

Plaid Cymru has ruled out an independence referendum in the next Senedd term, but the party has repeatedly said it will use its time in government to make the case for an independent Wales.

Ap Iorwerth is expected to begin appointing cabinet secretaries on Tuesday afternoon.

Accepting the post in the Senedd, ap Iorwerth paid tribute to the “resilience and determination” of his Welsh Labour predecessor. He went on:

Something has stirred in the soul of Wales – a new confidence, a new hope, a new broader horizon, never to be narrowed again by the naysayers with other priorities in other places.

From this historic moment onwards, every person in every part of our nation can know that the government of Wales is their government.

They will know that their government does not and will not impose on itself or on our citizens any limits on what our nation can achieve.

My promise to everyone is I will lead without prejudice or presumption.

I’ll never take this privilege for granted, nor will my principles be burdened by power because the challenges we face are too many in number and too grave in nature for us to lose sight of what is at stake.

More than 100 Labour MPs have signed a letter saying this is “no time for a leadership contest”, Jessica Elgot reports. She says:

103 backbenchers and PPSs have signed a statement saying this is ‘no time for a leadership contest’. The statement was organised by group of backbenchers, many from the 2024 intake. So far, the number exceeds those calling for him to quit - organisers say it’s rising.

The letter says: “Last week we had a devastatingly tough set of election results. It shows we have a hard job ahead to win back trust from the electorate.”

“That job needs to start today - with all of us working together to deliver the change the country needs. We must focus on that. This is no time for a leadership contest.”

This means the pro-Starmer camp is outnumbering the anti-Starmer camp – but only just. According to the LabourList tally, 88 Labour MPs have said the PM should go.

Andy Burnham’s allies have suggested he could quite easily find a Labour MP willing to stand down to allow him to run for parliament, but they have not said who this would be. There has been speculation that one candidate is Marie Rimmer, the MP for St Helens South and Whiston, who is 79.

As Josh Halliday reports, Rimmer has said she won’t stand down for Burnham. She has also issued a statement saying she supports Keir Starmer, is glad he is not standing down and thinks Labour should be offering “stability, seriousness and leadership”.

A third minister has resigned – Alex Davies-Jones, the minister for victims. Like Jess Phillips, Davies-Jones describes Keir Starmer as a good man in her resignation letter. But she says Labour must respond to the message sent by the “catastrophic” election results.

Davies-Jones represents Pontypridd in south Wales where the Labour defeat was particularly disastrous.

Here are some extracts from Jess Phillips’ resignation letter. Phillips is one of the most high-profile junior ministers in the government, and this will be seen as part of an orchestrated campaign by Wes Streeting supporters to trigger a leadership contest.

Here are some of the main points.

• Phillips pays a barbed tribute to Starmer – thanking him for his support on tackling violence against women and girls, but saying Starmer only acted under pressure. She says:

I want to start by first saying that we have worked closely together on Violence Against Women and Girls for many years and I have no doubt you have genuine knowledge and desire to rectify this dreadful social ill. We have started to make steps towards change whilst in government and I have been grateful for your support.

However, it would be remiss of me not to say that real change and direction in this area usually came from threats made by me in light of catastrophic mistakes. The Mandelson saga whenever it bubbled up made Number 10 kick into gear on the subject in order to prove our credentials. I will never waste a crisis to make advancements for women and girls and so demands were made and some were met.

• She describes Starmer as “a good man” – but unsuited to leadership.

I think you are a good man fundamentally, who cares about the right things however I have seen first-hand how that is not enough. The desire not to have an argument means we rarely make an argument, leaving opportunities for progress stalled and delayed.

• She accuses Starmer of blocking her plans for legislation to stop children being able to use phones to take naked images of themselves. She cites this as an example of the “incremental” approach to politics that Starmer claimed yesterday to reject.

Over a year ago I presented solutions, long worked on by brilliant civil servants that would end the ability for children in the UK to take naked images of themselves. 91% of online child sex abuse is self-generated by children groomed, tricked and exploited in to abuse. The technology exists to stop children being able to take naked images of themselves. We could make this possible on every phone and device in the country. We could stop this abuse. It has taken me a year to get you to agree to even threaten to legislate in this space. Not legislate, just threaten. This is the definition of incremental change. Nothing bold about it. The announcement was meant to be in March, I’m still on a promise this will happen in June, I’ve given up believing it. How many children were left without a safety net in the time we dilly dallied and worried about tech bosses?

• She suggests Labour needs a leader with more gusto. She says:

Labour governments come around rarely is the constant refrain at the moment. It’s true they are precious. Every Labour government in my and my family’s lifetime has forged progress that changed our country and the world for the better. I know you care deeply, but deeds, not words are what matter. I’m not sure we are grasping this rare opportunity with the gusto that’s needed and I cannot keep waiting around for a crisis to push for faster progress.

Decency is vital, calm curiosity is also needed, but so too are fight and drive required. Have a row, push back, make arguments, bring people along. Standing up and being counted can’t always be workshopped. Politics is as much about feelings as policy, especially at the moment.

• She says she is resigning because Labour is not delivering change quickly enough. Almost all the other Labour MPs saying Starmer should go have highlighted his unpopularity with voters, but this is not a point Phillips is making. She says:

I want a Labour government to work and I will strive as I always have for its success and popularity, but I’m not seeing the change I think I, and the country expect, and so cannot continue to serve as a minister under the current leadership.

Jess Phillips, the safeguarding minister, has resigned, Sky News is reporting. She says she can no longer support Keir Starmer as PM. She says Labour needs a leader with more “gusto”.

Phillips is an ally of Wes Streeting’s.

Allies of Andy Burnham have warned against a “coronation” for Wes Streeting as the next prime minister and called on Labour’s ruling body to allow the mayor to stand for the leadership, Josh Halliday reports.

One of the prominent Labour MPs yesterday calling for Keir Starmer’s resignation was Chris Curtis. He is chair of the Labour Growth Group and today it has published a major report with proposals for a Labour government. The full document is here and this is what the Labour Growth Group says are its six main ideas.

1. Tax gains fairly, cut National Insurance on work. Reform Capital Gains Tax so gains built in Britain are taxed more fairly, while genuine investment and risk-taking are protected. Close death and exit loopholes …

2. Make Clean Power reach the meter. Cut bills with radical energy market reform. Redefine the central mission of Clean Power 2030 from “clean capacity announced” to clean power delivered to British homes and businesses at the lowest total system cost …

3. A ‘Build Britain Act’: decide once, then build. For nationally significant infrastructure including the grid, reservoirs, transport, energy, defence production and strategic compute, Parliament should decide the national interest up front …

4. The most radical English devolution settlement in modern times. Abolish the regeneration ‘begging bowl’ of competitive funding pots. Replace them with long-term settlements for Strategic Authorities. Give mayors and capable local leaders real powers over transport, housing, skills, land assembly, local infrastructure and business support …

5. End fake-market capitalism in essentials. If Thames Water cannot stand on its own obligations, it should enter special administration. Creditors take losses …

6. Build a real Department of the Prime Minister. Break open the Cabinet Office. Build a command centre at the heart of government with authority over delivery stocktakes, programme-critical appointments, Treasury dispute resolution and data tracking …

This report coincides with the publication of a separate report from the Tribune group of Labour MPs, which represents people on the soft-left of the party. Richard Partington has a story about this report here.

As Richard says, these MPs are calling for higher taxes on wealth, action on the cost of living and more borrowing to fund investment – including a redrawing of the government’s fiscal rules.

There is some overlap between the two groups, and the two policy documents. But, as Kiran Stacey and Jessica Elgot report, the Labour Growth Group is seen as aligned to Wes Streeting, whereas Tribune is seen as aligned to Andy Burnham.

Rory Carroll is the Guardian’s Ireland correspondent.

Whatever the outcome of Labour’s leadership crisis, nationalists in Northern Ireland say the prospect of a Nigel Farage-led government should galvanise preparations for a referendum on Irish unification.

“The fact that it is hard to predict how Farage would act in office is its own argument for proper planning for all scenarios,” Matthew O’Toole, the Stormont leader of the Social Democratic and Labour party (SDLP), wrote in an Irish Times op-ed today.

The Reform leader’s radically different approach to British-Irish relations should focus minds on the constitutional position of Northern Ireland, which voted against Brexit, said O’Toole.

At what point are citizens in the north entitled to say they do not want to live in a country run by Farage? That question goes far beyond the constituency traditionally defined as nationalist, and includes many people – and many in my constituency from unionist backgrounds – who are horrified at the prospect of a UK run by and for the coterie of charlatans and spivs that surround Farage.

O’Toole urged the Irish government to prepare for a border poll. “It is its own form of irresponsibility to act as if we can forever delay practical preparation.”

Sinn Féin’s Northern Ireland first minister, Michelle O’Neill, has hailed the victory of the Scottish National Party and Plaid Cymru in Scotland and Wales – completing a hat trick of nationalist first ministers - as seismic. “The core of that change is about independence for our people, free from the limitations of Westminster.”

Jenny Chapman, the development minister, gave a reasonably long interview to reporters after cabinet. She is one of Keir Starmer’s closest allies in cabinet (she was one of those who helped him develop a plan to become Labour leader even before the 2019 general election).

Here are the main points from what she said.

• Chapman said she did not accept that Starmer had lost authority. When it was put to her that Starmer’s authority had been destroyed, she replied:

No, I don’t believe so. It’s not what I have just seen around the cabinet table. I saw a whole cabinet united and focussed on dealing with the issues that are confronting the British people.

When it was put to her that having more than 70 MPs call for Starmer’s resignation, she did not accept that.

• She said she was not surprised that no one challenged Starmer’s leadership at cabinet.

• She said that Starmer was in a “good” state, “focused” and “resilient”. When asked to say, as a close friend, how Starmer was coping with this crisis, she replied:

He’s great, he’s good, he’s focused, he’s resilient, he’s determined.

I’ve heard some people say that he is obstinately … or being defiant. That is not at all his vibe. He is in there really, really determined to do the job for the people of the country, the one that he was tasked with doing only two years ago. And he’ll see that through.

• She said the whole cabinet supported Starmer at cabinet this morning. Everyone who spoke “was focused on the issues that we’re facing”. And she said “everybody acknowledged the strength of leadership that the prime minister has shown”. She said this included Wes Streeting, the health secretary; he spoke at cabinet, about the NHS and the impact of Iran war, she said.

• She said she did not think there would be a leadership challenge. And, if there was a challenge, she said she thought Starmer should fight it.

• But she said a leadership challenge would be “the worst thing” the party could do. She said:

I think the worst thing that we could do to embark on a kind of process that leads to instability in the leadership of this country. It would be bad for our economy, but bad for our politics more generally as well.

• She said she thought the “majority of Labour MPs” did not want a leadership challenge. She went on:

They don’t want the chaos. So I hope that we can take a breath, settle and come up with a way forward, which is which is about putting the people in this country first.

At cabinet no one challenged Keir Starmer and suggested he should go, according to Pat McFadden, the work and pensions secretary.

Speaking to reporters as he left No 10, McFadden said the government should “carry on.”

Asked whether anyone challenged Starmer at the meeting, he replied: “They didn’t.”

Steve Reed, the housing secretary, has just left No 10 after cabinet. Speaking to reporters, he essentially restated what Keir Starmer said in his statement. (See 9.48am.) Reed said:

The prime minister has my full support.

The Labour party has a process for triggering a leadership election.

That has not happened.

So we all intend to get on with our jobs, and that is what I intend to do.

Keir Starmer’s statement to cabinet this morning (see 9.48am) was carefully worded.

At the weekend Starmer gave an interview to the Observer that resulted in the paper reporting that he wanted 10 more years in No 10. That was subsequently viewed as a mistake, reminiscent of Margaret Thatcher saying she would “go on and on” and Boris Johnson saying he was planning for his third term in office. These were moments of hubris that alarmed even the leaders’ supporters.

In his statement Starmer does not say he definitely intends to stay on until the next election. He refers to the argument he made in his speech yesterday about instability being bad for the country and he refers to the fact that no one has triggered a leadership contest. But he does not even say how he would respond to such a challenge, and so – although he indicates that he is staying on – he leaves open the possibility that, if there is a challenge, he might announce plans to resign.

What Starmer is doing, though, is throwing down a challenge, and it is aimed at one minister in particular; he’s telling Wes Streeting: “Have a go if you’re hard enough.”

Streeting may be the the only person in cabinet capable of getting the 81 names needed to launch a leadership challenge. Until now, he has said that he won’t challenge Starmer, but he has been acting as if he has been expecting others to make that contest happen.

Now, it seems, if Streeting wants a contest, he is going to have to trigger it himself.

Keir Starmer has told his cabinet that he is not resigning.

According to No 10, he said:

As I said yesterday, I take responsibility for these election results and I take responsibility for delivering the change we promised.

The past 48 hours have been destabilising for government and that has a real economic cost for our country and for families.

The Labour party has a process for challenging a leader and that has not been triggered.

The country expects us to get on with governing. That is what I am doing and what we must do as a cabinet.

Miatta Fahnbulleh, minister for devolution, faith and communities, has become the first minister to resign so that she can call for Keir Starmer’s resignation.

She has posted this on social media.

John McDonnell, the Labour leftwinger and shadow chancellor under Jeremy Corbyn, has accused Wes Streeting, the health secretary, of launching a “coup” against Keir Starmer. He posted this on social media this morning.

I called for time for serious discussion, no precipitous coup & fully democratic process if leadership election.Instead Wes Streeting has launched coup for fear of a democratic process & whilst candidates are blocked. Handing leadership to Mandelson’s protege is gift to Reform

Streeting’s allies insist that, while Streeting has been making plans for a potential leadership contest, he said he was not going to challenge Starmer directly, and he hasn’t.

McDonnell clearly does not believe that. When he talks of a coup, he is referring to the fact that prominent Streeting supporters, like Chris Curtis, Alan Gemmell, and Jas Athwal, were among the Labour backbenchers calling for Starmer’s resignation yesterday.

This is from my colleague Pippa Crerar, the Guardian’s political editor.

It’s notable that yesterday majority of cabinet ministers *did not* offer statements of support for PM (apart from those on media round).

Their actions this morning could determine whether Starmer survives. Among other factors, they will be considering:

1/ who would take over as PM and - crucially - what they would do differently. And whether they would a/ face any different problems (they wouldn’t) and b/ be any better at dealing with them. Or would they just inherit the deep discontent that has been focused on Starmer to date?

2/ whether now is the time to remove their leader - given volatile situation at home and abroad and it’s only 20 months into a government - or whether they would be better off waiting until closer to next election if that’s their plan.

3/ how the Tories and Reform (and right wing media) would respond to a change in leader at this stage in the cycle (in short - with glee, before moving on to destabilising the next one, and the next)

4/ whether Starmer has it in him to up his game - to deliver the big change needed, to communicate it better and to start trying to win round his party and the country.

5/ most importantly, what the public thinks: can Starmer turn around opinion (personal approval ratings at historic lows) or is it already too late? And how would they view a Labour govt - which promised stability after years of Tory chaos - inflicting more of the same?

UK government borrowing costs are rising this morning. This is what Graeme Wearden has posted on his business live blog.

The yield, or interest rate, on benchmark 10-year UK gilts has risen by almost 10 basis points (0.1 of a percentage point) to 5.1%, up from 5% last night.

Bond yields rise when prices fall, and this morning’s move adds to a rise in borrowing costs yesterday.

Longer-dated borrowing costs have also risen. The yield on 30-year UK bonds has risen by 10 basis points to over 5.77%, very close to the 28-year high (5.78%) set earlier this month.

Michael Brown, senior research strategist at brokerage Pepperstone, says bond investors are concerned about a possible change of prime minister. Brown says: “The market’s main concern here, and the reason for this gilt underperformance, is twofold – firstly, that a new PM would shift to the left, and loosen/scrap the UK’s current fiscal rules; and, secondly, that doing so would exacerbate the UK’s inflation problem. With political uncertainty likely to persist for a while, and the fiscal rhetoric only set to ramp up, those considering buying the dip in Gilts may be minded to wait a while.”

There is more here.

Zack Polanski, the Green party leader, has admitted he may have failed to pay the correct council tax while living on a London houseboat. Jamie Grierson has the story.

Tomorrow King Charles is coming to parliament to deliver the king’s speech at the state opening of parliament. It is the event that marks the start of a new session of parliament (lasting about a year, normally), and the speech sets out all the bills the government is planning to pass.

The king delivers the speech on behalf of what he describes as “my government”. The speech does not normally mention the PM by name, but it is delivered on the assumption that the PM (who has to listen to the speech standing with other MPs near the entrance to the Lords chamber, and who has to give a speech defending it in the Commons later) will remain in office to implement it.

If Keir Starmer were to announce a timetable for his resignation today, then the king would have to deliver a speech drafted by the Starmer administration in the knowledge that, within a few months, a new prime minister with different legislative priorities might be in office. That would certainly be unusual, and perhaps even unprecedented.

In his Sky News intervew, Darren Jones, the chief secretary to the PM, said that the speech was still set to go ahead. He said:

As far as I’m aware, the king’s speech is going ahead tomorrow.

We’ve been working very hard to bring together a programme of bills for the next session that meet the challenges that we face as a country and it’s important that we get on with that work.

Darren Jones, the chief secretary to the PM, is the minister doing the broadcast interview round this morning.

Yesterday Peter Kyle, the business secretary, was the government spokesperson speaking in this slot. He was bullish in support of Keir Starmer.

This morning Jones has been a lot more equivocal. On Times Radio, asked if Starmer was considering setting out a timetable for his departure, Jones said:

He’s listening to colleagues and he’s talking to colleagues. I can’t get get ahead of any decision he might take.

In an interview with Sky News, he took the same line. Asked by Sophy Ridge if he had spoken to the PM, Jones replied:

I spoke to the prime minister last night, as you would expect, and he is talking to colleagues who have raised issues yesterday. But he was also very clear, as I’m sure all of my colleagues are, that coming into the office this morning, as we all are doing, we’re absolutely focussed on our jobs, on delivering the things that we’ve promised to deliver for the public.

Jones was asked if he expected the PM to lead the party into the next election. Until today, cabinet ministers asked this question have almost always said yes. But today Jones replied:

I’m not going to get ahead of any decision that the prime minister may or may not take.

Asked if Starmer was considering setting out a timetable for his resignation, Jones said:

Obviously colleagues are asking the prime minister to consider different options in the future. And, as I say, he rightfully is listening to them. It’d be wrong if he wasn’t listening to them.

Jones also repeated his line about how he did not want to “get ahead of any decision the prime minister may or may not take in the future”.

Ridge told Jones that she was surprised by the tone of his replies. She said, listening to him, that she felt it was “all coming to an end”.

Jones did not accept that. But he accepted that he was “sad that we’re in this situation in the first place” and sad about the election results.

Asked about reports that Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, has asked Starmer to set out a timetable for his resignation, Jones said he would not discuss private conversations. But he stressed that politics was “a team sport”.

Asked if he knew what Starmer had decided to do, Jones said he would not discuss private conversations. But he went on:

[Starmer’s] got an important job to do as prime minister of our country … He’s got an important job as leader of the Labour party. and if the prime minister, decides to say anything further to his speech yesterday, I’m sure he’ll come and do that on on Sky news very shortly.

Good morning. “Stories beat spreadsheets,” Keir Starmer declared in his speech yesterday. But yesterday was a day when the spreadsheets had the upper hand. Most news organisations were using them to keep a track of Labour MPs who were coming out and calling for Starmer’s resignation and, after his speech in the morning, the numbers started to escalate. Here is the LabourList one; by the end of last night they were on 77.

The sort of names on the spreadsheets changed too. Initially it was mostly leftwingers calling for the PM to go, with the Andy Burnham supporters stressing the need for a timetable for an orderly transition (ie – a slow process, allowing Burnham to win a byelection before a leadership contest). But in the afternoon government loyalists, and some prominent Wes Streeting supporters, started speaking out. And by early evening parliamentary private secretaries (technically, people on the government “payroll”) were joining in too.

And now some cabinet ministers are starting to tell Starmer, privately, that he needs to go. Here is our overnight story by Pippa Crerar and Jessica Elgot.

And here is an extract.

The Guardian understands that two senior cabinet ministers – Yvette Cooper, the foreign secretary, and Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary – told the prime minister he should oversee an orderly transition of power after crushing election defeats risked ringing the death knell on his premiership.

At least two others – believed to be John Healey and David Lammy – discussed with Starmer how they should take a “responsible, dignified, orderly” approach to what might follow. Several others – including Richard Hermer and Steve Reed – were defiant, urging him to fight on.

The cabinet is meeting this morning, at 9am or soon after. Starmer said yesterday he would fight any bid to force him out, and some of his allies are urging him to stay. But his position looks perilous; it is possible that before the end of the day he may have announced a plan to stand down.

We will be focusing on this throughout the day, although some other politics may get a mention.

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