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In your briefing today:

• Downing Street has launched a furious campaign to fend off rivals for Keir Starmer’s job as Prime Minister

• Scottish teachers could take strike action over how much teaching they’re being asked to do

• Hamilton Academical looks to be sinking deeper into the mire, as the SFA takes action against senior figures at the club

📣 Allies of Keir Starmer are attempting to ward off a leadership challenge, as a cabinet feud over his leadership spills into the open only two weeks before Chancellor Rachel Reeves unveils her budget.

The Prime Minister’s supporters say he will fight any challenge to his leadership from Labour MPs amid rumours that some of his most senior ministers - including Wes Streeting, the health secretary, and Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary - are “on manoeuvres”. (Guardian) (BBC)

• Warnings of “market shock” that would undermine government finances if Starmer is replaced (Bloomberg)

• Number 10 in “bunker mode” (Mail)

• Downing Street’s attempts to head off a coup - more later in today’s edition ⬇️

📣 The cardiology system in Scotland has been “overwhelmed” by rising demand, according to a report from Public Health Scotland.

A tripling of cardiac inpatient waiting lists over the last five years has been described as “steady and concerning” by the agency. It has been accompanied by a huge increase in the number of people waiting more than 12 weeks for treatment.

“The timing of these increases strongly suggests that the Covid-19 pandemic had a profound impact on service performance,” the report says. (STV) (Read the full report)

📣 “Waspi women” could get some compensation after all: the government is to re-open its controversial decision not to award money to 3.8 million women affected by changes to the state pension age after new evidence came to light. A reversal of the decision could cost the public purse as much as £10.5 billion. (Independent)

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AROUND SCOTLAND

📣 Scottish teachers could take strike action over a dispute on how much time they are required to spend teaching. The SNP promised to reduce contact time in its last election manifesto, but the EIS contends the government has not delivered. (Mail)

📣 The Herald’s big series on the Edinburgh Trams extension has got round to looking at some of the criticism of the proposals: a piece by Vicky Allan was published just as yesterday’s edition of The Early Line was winging its way to you, and it sets out “the seven reasons people object to a Roseburn Path tram route”. (Herald)

• Roseburn Path: What is the row over a new Edinburgh tram line about? (BBC)

📣 A teenage driver has been found not guilty of causing a crash which killed his two best friends. (Daily Record)

📣 Tesco has withdrawn a “deeply offensive” Christmas card which appears to make light of diabetes. (The Sun)

AROUND THE UK & WORLD

📣 UK unemployment has hit 5% for the first time since the Covid pandemic: it’s a “jobs bloodbath,” says the Mail, with workers being axed at the rate of 1,000 a day. (Mail)

📣 The US Government shutdown could end today, on day 43, “with almost no one happy about the final result”. (AP)

📣 The Nationwide Building Society has said it’ll keep its entire branch network open until at least 2030, bucking a trend of branch closures in the banking industry. (Mail)

📣 Donald Trump wants to give American families a £2,000-a-person tariff “dividend”. (AP)

📣 There’s a strong chance of seeing the Northern Lights tonight, across the northern half of the UK, as the Sun goes through a phase of coronal mass ejections. (BBC)

📣 David Szalay won the Booker Prize on Monday night for his sixth novel, Flesh. Talking to Lisa Allardice, he comes across as “an extremely genial and gentle author to have created one of the most morally ambiguous characters in recent contemporary fiction.” (Guardian)

SPORT

⚽️ Hamilton Academical are in real trouble: the troubled club faces the possibility of yet another points deduction after they lost an appeal against the SFA’s decision to downgrade their club’s license from bronze to entry level.

The club’s owner - Seref Zengin - and its Director of Football - Gerry Strain - have both been told they are no longer considered fit and proper to hold major roles at the club. (The Herald has the exclusive)

⚽️ Billionaire Hibs shareholder Bill Foley is poised to sell a 25% stake in the club, with the Gordon family planning to buy the shares. (The Sun has the exclusive)

⚽️ Frenchman Wlfried Nancy, currently managing Columbus Crew, is such a strong frontrunner for the Celtic job one bookmaker has suspended betting. (Daily Record)

IDEAS
Why Keir Starmer’s Downing Street is suddenly on the defensive, amid swirling rumours of rivals’ plots

🗣️ It was an extraordinary, vaguely paranoid, flurry. Yesterday evening, after a day of headlines largely dominated by the BBC’s problems, Downing Street suddenly went into what can only be described as a spasm of rebuttal, with no fewer than three sources talking to the Guardian’s Pippa Crerar about the Prime Minister’s determination to carry on in his job, no matter who might be planning otherwise.

A “bitter row” has broken out, she writes, after No 10 became concerned about speculation among MPs that health secretary Wes Streeting, one of the government’s few stars, was “planning an imminent coup" against the prime minister.

“In a sign of how anxious some in No 10 have become over Starmer’s position, senior figures said they had been told that Streeting had 50 frontbenchers willing to stand down if the budget landed badly and the prime minister did not go,” writes Crerar.

It might have seemed an unexpected turn of events, but rumours have been building for weeks, hitting fever pitch among MPs in Westminster on Monday as continued dark speculation about the contents of the budget - now only two weeks away - continued to drip out.

As the row spills into the public eye, it’s clear Streeting is not the only one taking soundings. “Now the operation sees threats everywhere,” writes Jessica Elgot, “and is determined to put potential rebels in the spotlight and flush out rivals”.

On Monday, Sky News’s Sam Coates was saying on his podcast that some MPs were of the view that Starmer was “pretty much done for”, and that Number 10 was already aware of that. But some also thought the operation around the Prime Minister was on edge, being paranoid, about the threat to Starmer’s job.

Either way, Keir Starmer is “already fighting the leadership election”, according to “allies” quoted by Patrick Maguire in the Times (£). It was that title which started the rumour machine going again through its political podcast, The State of It (open in Spotify), which first reported his decision - their words - to “face down any putsch”.

The podcast contends that he now sees the challenge as “inevitable”, possibly as soon as after the budget, as Labour looks ahead to a likely disastrous set of elections in May.

(Frustratingly for most readers of this email, I suspect, reports from London insist on referring to May as “local elections” - which they are, in England. But for Wales and Scotland, they amount to something much more substantive. The Labour Party faces challenges in both UK nations which amount to something extitential. That’s another reason why a challenge may come after the budget, but before those Spring polls).

But, for the time being, the noise you’re hearing isn’t being created by challengers to Starmer’s position. Rather, it’s the operation within Downing Street attempting to quell disquiet by going public with an expression of Starmer’s determination to carry on, no matter what. That’s an echo of the muscular tactic which saw off Andy Burnham a couple of months ago, after a summer of mutinous talk.

But the stakes are higher this time, and Starmer’s ground even less certain because of the unpopular budget that looms. Going public now may only draw attention to Starmer’s precarious position, further raise tensions within the Labour backbenches, and offer further encouragement to Labour’s political rivals.

👍 That’s your Early Line for the day

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