These are the end times for Keir Starmer, writes Andrew Marr

So when I say that the resignation of John Healey today as defence secretary is the end for Keir Starmer, and indeed for the chancellor Rachel Reeves, I mean it is part of what looks now like an inevitable collapse of authority.

This may end with Andy Burnham in number 10 and Wes Streeting in number 11, but there are many twists and turns on that journey and nobody can be sure what’s coming next.

But let’s start by laying out the big picture. This country is in grave danger from Russia. Starmer himself said we could be attacked within the next four years. He knows that, after the strategic defence review, it was vital to explain to the country, again and again, in starker terms, just how serious the threat is, so people understand and are ready to make the sacrifices. But he didn’t.

He knew, as soon as the SDR was handed over, he needed to urgently persuade the Treasury and cabinet colleagues to find the money for really big and swift increases in our defences. He didn’t.

Delay after delay until some of the most loyal people in the Labour family were visibly bursting with impatience and anger.

In the words of Healey's resignation letter, since January “you have been unable, and the Treasury has been unwilling, to commit the resources that the nation needs to defend the country at this time of rising threats.”

That sentence alone, unless it is refuted very fast and very convincingly – and no sign of that so far – demands further and more senior resignations. It’s devastating. It spells out on defence what has so often been said of the Starmer government – not enough understanding of the big picture, not enough clarity, not enough explanation, not enough authority, not enough urgency. Not failings of process, not failings of organisation, but human failings.

A couple of hours before Mr Healey‘s resignation announcement, I was sitting in the Commons with a very senior labour figure discussing how the defence investment plan next week was going to be a horrible problem for the government – on the one hand MP‘s preparing to revolt against any serious cut in any serious budget, on the other the armed forces gearing up to say the money isn’t anything like enough.

Then there’s the Treasury refusing to look at more creative solutions such as a defence bond. Then there is the NATO summit deadline, which now looks like a diplomatic nightmare for Britain.

Questions ahead include who the new defence secretary is and what he or she decides to do; whether John Healy announces a leadership challenge; if so, what others, including Angela Rayner, then decide to do; and whether Keir Starmer keeps fighting on.

Big questions for other days. For a Labour government elected with such hope so relatively recently, these are already the end times

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Andrew Marr is an author, journalist and presenter for LBC.

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