Editorial: Sir Keir Starmer might go as prime minister but no likely successor looks like they can improve the handling of the multiple challenges facing the UK

​It is now hard to see how Keir Starmer stays as prime minister. ​While the Labour Party leader has been on the ropes for months, since well before the disastrous local and devolved election results in England, Scotland and Wales, his end was by no means certain for a simple reason – there was no obvious successor.

That remains the case now – it is hard to see anyone who as leader of the Labour government will improve Sir Keir’s handling of the multiple challenges, in some policy areas crises, facing the UK.

However, there are now so many Labour politicians either running against him or undermining him that it seems increasingly likely Downing Street will have a new incumbent within months, perhaps weeks.

A number of key developments happened yesterday. Angela Rayner said she had settled £40,000 in unpaid stamp duty and had not paid any penalty as a result of an HMRC (His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs) investigation into her underpayment of the tax on a property purchase. This is an appalling outcome if it is indeed how she has presented it – Labour has launched an assault on second property owners, as well as a wider tax grab on hardworking, prosperous people, so it is essential that its leaders are whiter-than-white in their own tax affairs. She was not, yet seems to have escaped unscathed.

Meanwhile, Wes Streeting quit the cabinet to challenge Sir Keir and a Labour MP says he will give Andy Burnham his Westminster seat. But neither Labour nor the nation’s woes are over.

Mr Burnham could easily lose any coming by-election in Makerfield. And not one Labour leadership contender seems even remotely prepared as prime minister to take the hard financial decisions that are so urgently needed in Britain, for example on welfare, to avert a possible debt crisis, let alone a national security one due to inadequate defence.