Keir Starmer's 'fatal trait' exposed as the Prime Minister's 'scandal-ridden nightmare' rumbles on

Rebel Labour MPs have claimed the Prime Minister's reign is "vulnerable" and could be gone as soon as "next May".

Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham is also understood to be "laying groundwork" for a leadership bid against Sir Keir, backed by some of the rebels.

Discussing the Prime Minister's mounting pressure, Mr Rampton told GB News: "It's certainly true that Starmer is in desperate need of good news.

"The past two weeks have been cataclysmically bad for him, they have unleashed a torrent of unease on his own backbenches.

"Andy Burnham is apparently on manoeuvres he may well criticise Sir Keir Starmer at the Labour Party conference, which would be a rather unprecedented thing to do, but would certainly nail his colours to the mast.

"And there are lots of rebel MPs saying they want to get Burnham into a safe seat at the next by-election, so he can challenge Starmer for the leadership."

Asked by host Ellie Costello if the latest scandals are resulting in a "death knell" for the Prime Minister, Mr Rampton admitted: "That's very interesting because that is one of the phrases that the MPs have been using, they're saying he's in the last chance saloon, and the Mandelson scandal they're saying is a death knell.

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"There are more questions about when Sir Keir knew the full details of the scandal involving Jeffrey Epstein, so there are lots of unanswered questions still about that. And Alastair Campbell used to say, if a scandal goes on for eight days, then someone will have to resign."

Issuing a warning to Sir Keir, Mr Rampton cautioned that the Prime Minister has "fallen into a trap" and has demonstrated a "fatal trait" as leader.

He explained: "He needs to change the narrative, or he's going to get really, really bogged down. It was only a year ago that Sir Keir Starmer won a landslide, and everyone thought that this was a new start after the Tory sleaze and scandals, but unfortunately, Starmer seems to have fallen into the same trap.

"He seems to be politically tone deaf, which is a fatal trait when you're Prime Minister. You have to be able to read the room, and it seems to me that he's got a tin ear and he's slightly wonky in his eyesight. He cannot tell what's going on politically, and that to me is disastrous."

Highlighting the recent Angela Rayner and Lord Mandelson controversies, Mr Rampton told GB News that Sir Keir should have got "ahead of the game" and sacked them.

Mr Rampton said: "He botched the sacking of Angela Rayner, he botched the sacking of Peter Mandelson, and those are the things where you think a really confident, politically astute PM would have got ahead of the game and really settled those issues before they became toxic for him.

"But now it's a bit late because they really are toxic for him, and I understand he's going to make a speech today about Mandelson to try and get it off the books before Trump arrives.

"He doesn't want, in one of those freewheeling press conferences, journalists to be shouting out questions to Trump about Epstein because Trump gets really, really livid when that happens, and he may turn against the UK.

"He's so volatile, you never know how he'll react. So Starmer, quite wisely, is saying, we've got to get ahead of this and try and get that off the agenda by the time we have the first press conference with Trump, or it could really derail it.

"He's so thin skinned Trump, and he's liable to react against us if it comes up."