After surviving a coup, and with his critics chastened, No 10 insiders say a more combative PM is up for taking the fight to Reform UK

Two days after Keir Starmer had been disowned by the Scottish Labour leader last week, and as a row raged over another controversial peerage, the prime minister decided to pick a fight with a billionaire.

It was a dark week for the prime minister, with the departure of his longtime chief of staff Morgan McSweeney, who had become a deeply divisive figure and who took the hit for the appointment of Peter Mandelson as US ambassador, despite his links to the convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.