'Head in hands': Ministers fume at No 10's self-inflicted chaos

Frustrated and disbelieving might politely sum up the mood of some in government this week, but - pardon my French - some senior Labour figures are frankly "pissed off and eye-rolling".

The Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood is preparing big new plans to tackle illegal immigration. The Chancellor Rachel Reeves is locked away with aides in the final stages of planning a heavy Budget.

Those two big acts could be what defines this troubled government this winter. Instead, all too often it's being defined by spectacular mishaps of their own making.

When Shabana Mahmood joins us on the show on Sunday she'll demonstrate why No 10 picked her for the post of home secretary - the expectation she'd take a tougher line than her predecessor on immigration and that, as her backers want her to be seen, she is a "woman in a hurry".

Her plans have already been met with dismay by refugee groups, and taking support away from asylum seekers is not exactly comfortable territory for many in the Labour Party.

But having studied the way other countries like Denmark have grappled with asylum and immigration, she'll set out an extensive list of changes she wants to make - including making refugee status temporary, so those granted safety in the UK could be sent back to their home country when circumstances improve. And there's likely to be a much less generous system of support for asylum seekers while they are here.

The claim from the Home Office is it's the most sweeping set of reforms since the war, accompanied by Mahmood's warning to her party - "if you don't like this, you won't like what follows me."

In other words, if Labour doesn't toughen up the system, and cut the number of small boat crossings and levels of illegal immigration, then a Reform UK government could be along next time round who might be much more radical.

That may not be enough to soothe the nerves of some Labour MPs about Mahmood's plans, which could have a bumpy journey through Parliament in the coming months.

Round the corner in the Treasury, Rachel Reeves is trying to get the sums to add up.

As you might have seen while having your cornflakes ten days ago, Reeves's incredibly unusual speech made very clear the Budget was going to be brutal and taxes were going to go up (more on why your income tax won't go up in a minute).

The chancellor has been trying to marshal her arguments - that the pain will be worth it to get waiting lists in the NHS down, help manage the cost of living, and try to pay down the country's debts.

But how can the arguments be made successfully when the last seven days seem to have displayed, according to one senior figure, that "basically, there isn't a competent political operation" in Downing Street?

You can read all about the briefing that came from No 10 claiming Keir Starmer would fight a leadership challenge earlier this week.

But I can't express strongly enough how baffled some in government still are.

"Insane", "nuts" and "I just don't understand" are the kinds of phrases being used to describe what happened. Politics can be - and is often - deeply weird. But this was off the charts.

Just in case you missed what happened, allies of the PM chose to advertise how nervous they are that someone might try to boot their boss out of a job by vowing, through journalists, that he'd fight a challenge. And for good measure, they took a stab at Health Secretary Wes Streeting for plotting to get rid of Starmer.

Cue screaming headlines about fear and loathing at the top of government, and a deeply awkward public appearance for the prime minister himself where he had to claim that no one in his team had done anything wrong, and that he'd get to the bottom of it, to make jolly sure.

One government source joked: "Keir was made to look ridiculous. I'm sure he was assured that no one in No 10 was behind the briefing. I'm also sure that even he didn't believe it. He was left channelling Captain Renault from Casablanca: 'I'm shocked, shocked to find that briefing is going on in here.'"

Inside Number 10 there's an admission that it all went terribly wrong, but there was an attempt to play down what really happened. Discussions of a possible challenge to Keir Starmer are nothing new.

A Downing Street source told me: "We were getting a lot of questions over several days about what he would do and it was our position that he would fight any challenge - which is the position of every prime minister ever."

According to one minister, the whole thing was "breathtaking self-indulgence" by No 10, looking inward at a time when the country desperately wants and needs a government that looks like "we get it".

Another cabinet minister said with constant dissatisfaction about the prime minster's leadership, it seems that "Keir thought there was too much chatter going on in PLP [the Parliamentary Labour Party], so they made a cack-handed effort to smoke Wes out".

It backfired badly. No 10 looked paranoid and wobbly. Streeting, who was - you couldn't quite make this up - appearing in public the next day with an extensive series of planned interviews, had overnight to think how to respond to the stories, and handled it with gags and guile.

Now, he's come out "looking like the guy in pole position" according to the minister.

Another member of the government says No 10 has "made the PM look more, not less, vulnerable".

Was he really planning a leadership campaign, with 50 MPs ready to back him?

It is not just some inside Downing Street who look at Streeting and sniff ambition. One government source said "there is a general view he's been on manoeuvres for years", but "the $64,000 question is why did No 10 decide to have a go this week?"

Another well-connected party insider also questioned why on earth the attack had taken place. Wes Streeting is no wallflower. For years he's enjoyed the spotlight and his ambitions have been obvious. "Wes is going to Wes" after all.

Streeting has flat out denied any such operation. And while it is absolutely true that a constant theme of chat in Labour circles is who will follow Keir Starmer and when, that is miles away from any one politician having worked up an actual plan, or genuinely plotting a leadership bid.

Then, into what a minister described as a "sulphurous mood" in the party, comes the leaked revelation that actually, even after all of that oh-so-careful pitch rolling, the chancellor is not going to have to raise income tax after all.

After weeks of nudges and hints about the budget (which, despite the faux outrage every year, believe me, is not new), the markets and the public had been softened up to expect Labour to break its election promise and put up income taxes across the board.

Not any more. This should have been a positive story for any government: "Hey everyone, we're not going to take more of your cash!", and the actual reason that they aren't going to rise is because growing wages are starting to feed through into the public coffers, so "hey, everyone, this also should be good news at a bleak time."

But after the chancellor hinted as subtly as a brick on Monday that they would go up, a story on Friday that says they won't is not exactly a recipe for enhanced credibility, nor the market stability that Reeves and Starmer say is vital.

A City source told me: "There is no confidence that this government will stick to a decision or even direction of travel. Even less confidence they won't come back for more, yet again. They rolled the pitch for income tax rises only to dig the pitch up."

A cynic might imagine the government deliberately put the income tax story out to distract from ongoing political chatter, or even that the decision has been taken in order to avoid a political bust-up with the rank and file over breaking a manifesto promise.

That's strongly denied by No 11. But as one minister remarked of the news blitzes before budgets: "it's not always as clever as it looks."

Despite the mess in front of all of our eyes, No 10 wants to emphasise the upsides. A senior source said, "obviously it's frustrating to spend so much time on these stories, but economically and politically we have had a very good week - it's positive that the economy is doing better, and positive that we don't have to break a manifesto pledge".

Ministers are scratching their heads trying to work out exactly what is going on behind the shiny black door.

Several I have spoken to think the prime minister's chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, ought to be heading for the door. He was the man behind Labour's incredible election victory and has long been responsible for Starmer's political strategy.

But increasingly, senior figures in the party look for that strategy and can't see one that makes sense. And ministers I've spoken to, trying to do the government's work and pull the party out of the terrible position in the polls, are increasingly cross at how Downing Street operates.

After this week, one said, "it leaves such a bad taste in the mouth of every minister. We are one team, we all take it personally - these briefings aren't coming from Larry the cat. It's head in hands."

And some are genuinely bamboozled by what is going on - is it tension between McSweeney and the minister Darren Jones, now Starmer's right-hand man? Is it building paranoia to protect Starmer's position as the polls have seen Labour lagging behind Reform for months?

Whatever it is, some of the the men and women who are trying to carry out the government's work are increasingly and obviously losing patience with the boss.

The plea from Downing Street is for everyone to get their heads down, and get on with their jobs. "All we can do is crack on and relentlessly tell the story of the government and what we are doing successfully," said a source.

Expect to see more of the PM in the run up to the Budget, promising more on school breakfast clubs, trying to emphasise rising wages and convince a deeply sceptical public that the government is trying to ease the cost of living.

But he's got to convince his colleagues too.

One cabinet minister said: "there is a real sense that everything we want to do is undermined by mistakes by No 10."

Respect for Keir Starmer's political operation in No 10 seems to be sliding. And that's a currency a prime minister in trouble simply cannot allow to disappear.