{"id":956138,"date":"2026-05-13T02:59:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T02:59:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/956138\/"},"modified":"2026-05-13T02:59:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T02:59:15","slug":"britains-embattled-prime-minister-is-still-in-office-no-one-knows-how-long-that-will-last-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/956138\/","title":{"rendered":"Britain\u2019s embattled prime minister is still in office. No one knows how long that will last. \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cWednesday is a firebreak,\u201d said one Labour official, granted anonymity like others quoted in this piece to speak frankly. \u201cPeople will see that it\u2019s disrespectful to [Buckingham] Palace \u2014 there will be a sense of duty around the monarchy that will kick in for some people.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

A government official echoed the same point, noting: \u201cYou can\u2019t make a fool of the king, can you?\u201d<\/p>\n

The sudden pause in intra-party hostilities comes after a whipsaw day in Westminster politics. Early Tuesday, the prime minister faced down his critics at a Cabinet meeting, refusing to allow discussion of his own leadership and declining a request by Health Secretary Wes Streeting \u2014 a key potential challenger \u2014 to meet in private immediately afterwards.<\/p>\n

\"\"A betting company\u2019s odds on contenders to be the next leader of Britain\u2019s Labour party, with Andy Burnham, Wes Streeting and Angela Rayner\u2019s names all listed, on Whitehall in central London on May 12. | Brook Mitchell\/AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Streeting is instead due to meet Starmer on Wednesday morning to ask the prime minister how he plans to get the party out of its mess. An ally of Streeting said the health secretary would not make a statement after the meeting that might distract from the monarch.<\/p>\n

Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy was urging colleagues Tuesday night to \u201cstep back, take a breath, remember that we have the king\u2019s speech.\u201d No wonder. People familiar with the matter told POLITICO<\/a> that the king\u2019s team had made clear to Starmer\u2019s officials the importance of protecting Charles from any impression that he is being used for political ends in the Labour leadership fight.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Charles, in words written by Starmer\u2019s government, is due to announce more than 35 planned or draft bills including an immigration crackdown, health reform, digital ID, closer EU alignment and energy infrastructure.\u00a0That whole agenda could all soon be junked by a different prime minister.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cWednesday is a firebreak,\u201d said one Labour official, granted anonymity like others quoted in this piece to speak…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":956139,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5018,3,4],"tags":[8916,9311,748,6659,6217,3677,97199,17790,33,35,25799,393,4884,40,774,807,518,25809,2452,38484,1144,5111,712,60422,182,16,15,1764,771,3595],"class_list":{"0":"post-956138","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-britain","8":"category-uk","9":"category-united-kingdom","10":"tag-andy-burnham","11":"tag-angela-rayner","12":"tag-britain","13":"tag-crisis","14":"tag-david-lammy","15":"tag-digital","16":"tag-digital-id","17":"tag-ed-miliband","18":"tag-elections","19":"tag-energy","20":"tag-energy-infrastructure","21":"tag-england","22":"tag-great-britain","23":"tag-immigration","24":"tag-iran","25":"tag-keir-starmer","26":"tag-king-charles-iii","27":"tag-mayors","28":"tag-media","29":"tag-monarchy","30":"tag-northern-ireland","31":"tag-parliament","32":"tag-scotland","33":"tag-shabana-mahmood","34":"tag-social-media","35":"tag-uk","36":"tag-united-kingdom","37":"tag-wales","38":"tag-war","39":"tag-wes-streeting"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116565034234592104","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/956138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=956138"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/956138\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/956139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=956138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=956138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=956138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}