Hello and welcome to Coffee House Shots, The Spectator's Daily Politics Podcast. I'm Oskredenson. I'm joined today by James Heel and Tim Shipman.

Now, this week, Labour are taking us right back seemingly to the dying days of the Tory party. As the Peter Manelson scandal rumbles on, Keir Starmes' position looks increasingly perilous

and a campaign to oust him becoming a little bit more organised.

Tim, have you had any interesting WhatsApp from disappointed Labour MPs?

Oh, I mean, everybody's absolutely incandescent.

And the herd, to use the analogy that Nadim Zaharwe put into Boris Johnson's mouth when he was about to fall off his perch, the herd was wondering whether to move.

There were a lot of MPs chewing the cud, which is a polite way of saying, drinking themselves into a stupor, wondering whether somebody else would move and if so whether they would move as well.

The herd did not ultimately move.

And I think as dawn breaks over Westminster and the miserable weather does nothing to improve the mood of Labour MPs,

they're in a state of utter despair, extreme anger, but not yet anything resembling determined resolve.

And we've had this surreal sight of the prime minister going off and making a speech as if nothing's happened.

But I think various people last night were saying, if one, two, three ministers decided to jump ship, this thing could fall over very fast indeed.

But as we speak, almost...

There was some suggestion about Hillary Ben as well, wasn't that?

Well, I was contacted by a civil servant who said, if you've got eyes on ministers who might resign, I know that Hillary Ben is disgusted by what's happened.

And wouldn't that be an interesting move?

Ben is the sort of, you know, his labour royalty.

He's generally regarded as a serious chap on all sides of the house.

His speech about the Syrian bombing, which was one of the most sort of humiliating speeches

against Jeremy Corbyn. While he was Labour leader is one of the great bits of oratory I've ever heard in House Commons. He's a proper person, you know, longstanding select committee chair multiple times cabinet minutes. If he were to jump ship, that would have a proper moral force. He's not seen as a fractional player. No one would say, ooh, this is a West Streeting move or this is an Angela-Rona move. They would just go, this is a, we've had enough of Keir-Starman move. Now, I was contacted after musing about that by someone close to Ben who said there's no question at the moment, absolute nonsense that he would resign, but it doesn't change the point that Ben is one of the very few people who would have, you know, an ability

to change the outcome here unless a whole bunch of people get together. And there are

some obvious other people who matter in the cabinet, Shabana Mahmood, Ed Miliband, possibly Yvette

...