 The ongoing clear out of Keir Starmer's top team has claimed its latest victim. Starmer's political director Jenny Chapman has been forced from her job amid increasing disquiet from Labour MPs. Now Chapman's departure follows that of Ben Nunn. He was director of communications and Morgan McSweeney, who was his chief of staff. So that's free of the top jobs in Lotto. So leader of the opposition's office have now gone. As to what forced Chapman out, Henry Zephyr in The Times has some well-informed analysis. He writes that after Labour's defeat last month in the Hartlepool by-election, Chapman came in for much of the blame. She was accused of choosing a Remainer candidate with a questionable social media history, opting to hold the contest on the wrong date and botching the reshuffle that followed in flaming Starmer's relationship with Angela Reina, his deputy. Because in Starmer's orbit, insist these criticisms are misplaced and that MPs desperate for somebody to blame for Labour's problems are looking for an easy target. Perhaps so. But the problem for Chapman was that her critics are on both the left of the party, who believe Starmer is wrong to abandon Corbinism, and the right, who fear he is not abandoning Corbinism with sufficient zeal. Chapman might have survived the chagrin of one group, but to have lost the confidence of both was unsustainable. We talked about some of those reasons why people thought Jenny Chapman had done a bad job holding the Hartlepool by-election on the same day as the local elections, which many people assessed would mean a higher Tory turnout because they had a popular Tory mayor in the region also starting that war with Angela Reina, which absolutely backfired everyone watching. That was like, what the hell is going on here? Obviously, political director, your job is kind of to manage relationships with MPs, with the party. That's all gone pretty goddamn wrong. So it's not really a surprise she has moved. By the way, she hasn't, she's not now unemployed. She's been made Brexit secretary. So she will be in the Shadow Cabinet. She's a Lord. So she can move from being in the office to being on the front bench. As I say, the worrying part there is that they are saying some of the people pushing for her exit were to the right of her who didn't think Stammer has abandoned Corbynism quick enough. Now, Jenny Chapman is not on the left of the party. She was a vice chair of progress. So this is very much a dyed in the wall labor right figure, right? But there are people in the party who want him to move further to the right and more quickly. Now, my assessment here is that this probably isn't about policy. I don't think there are many serious people who are looking at the polls and thinking, oh, if only we would absolutely rule out any tax rises, if only we would back more foreign wars, if only we would promise to increase tuition fees instead of reduce them, that would sort out our electoral problems. I don't think anyone is actually stupid enough to think that that will help labor in the polls. What I think is going on here is that there are people with cold feet on the right of the Labour Party who are thinking Keir Starmer is probably not going to last much longer. We need to, with the utmost urgency, get in people who can stitch up the party as quick as possible. So you want to get people in there potentially from Labour First who are saying, let's not faff about with any of these niceties, policy, review, whatnot. Let's just change the leadership rules. Let's just try and deselect the few left-wing MPs there are. Let's make sure that every selection in future is completely stitched up so the left can never have any influence in the party again. That's to me what I think is the most likely underlying logic that's going on here. It's also, you might not be surprised to know, an analysis shared by our very own Aaron Bustani. I want to go to a tweet from him. He writes, a senior Labour source responds to Jenny Chapman being removed from Starmer's office. Starmer is now a hostage of Labour First. People should be prepared for a fractional onslaught. They'll shift gears after Batley. Aaron says now more than ever it's not about winning national elections. So that's senior sources in the Labour Party who are saying essentially that's what's going on. You have some people who weren't on the Labour Left, but more from the Progress Wing. They've been pushed out now. MPs have had enough of them. Fixers in the party have had enough in them. And I would imagine that in some of those roles are going to be some real fractional fighters who can stitch up the party as soon as possible for the right so that if need be, Starmer can stand down and be replaced by someone, well, I'd say even further to the right than him, but just as right-wing as him. I mean, I think here is the issue is not so much who's going to be the next leader, but can you lock the left out forever? That's their priority. And I think that's how we should probably read all of these internal reshuffles. Obviously, this is happening in advance of the Batley and Spen by-election, which they seem pretty sure they're going to lose. The Daily Mail today was suggesting that the Tory campaigner saying Labour will come third. They're saying the real battle is between the Tories and George Galloway. They might be trolling. I wouldn't necessarily trust Tory campaigners on who is Labour's real challenge when it comes to Batley and Spen. But I think that by-election is likely to go very badly. This looks like the Labour right preparing the ground to say, well, if Keir Starmer is not going to win a general election, let's make sure we've changed the rules before he falls.