Sir Keir Starmer has been urged to fire his Downing Street chief of staff by former Labour home secretary David Blunkett.
Lord Blunkett said the prime minister should dismiss his top adviser Morgan McSweeney and replace him with someone who can “manage people well”.
The intervention by Lord Blunkett comes days after anonymous briefings by unnamed Downing Street sources claimed that health secretary Wes Streeting was plotting to replace the prime minister.
Mr Streeting denied the allegation and said it was proof of a “toxic culture” in No 10.
Sir Keir apologised to Mr Streeting. He later said he had been assured the briefings “didn’t come from Downing Street”, adding: “I will absolutely deal with anybody responsible for briefing against ministers, cabinet ministers or any other ministers.”
Lord Blunkett said: “If I was Keir Starmer I would say to Morgan McSweeney, ‘You have got great skills, you helped enormously with me in building a winning team before the election. Now is the time for me to find you another role that you are good at and I will bring in someone with the overall experience that we need to be the chief of staff’.”
He went on: “It is a particular role – it is about knowing about government and having been in a senior position where you have had to not only run the show but manage people well. It is not rocket science but it is a particular skill.”
Mr McSweeney has been blamed by some within Labour for the fallout from the attacks on Mr Streeting, which were an apparent ploy to warn off potential leadership contenders.
The prime minister has also faced calls to sack Mr McSweeney over the row.
But sources who have spoken to Mr McSweeney told the BBC on Thursday he would remain in his post.
They said: “He’s done absolutely nothing wrong. He’s not going anywhere.” They added: “I can categorically say he was not involved indirectly or directly.”
Speaking to the Newsagents podcast, Lord Blunkett said if the government did not improve its performance it would pave the way for Nigel Farage to take power.
He said: “We will be in serious trouble if we don’t get our act together, because the opinion polls are awful and the feeling of bewilderment in the electorate is palpable.”
The unrest at the top of the party comes as Labour’s poll ratings have plummeted since Sir Keir delivered a landslide general election victory in July 2024.
It precedes Rachel Reeves’s 26 November Budget, in which the party could rip up its manifesto promise not to increase income tax, and what MPs fear could be a bloodbath in elections next May in English councils and the Scottish and Welsh parliaments.
