THE definition of insanity is, famously, doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

I say famously but this trite truism does not seem to have penetrated the bulging brains over at No 10.

Rightward lurch after rightward lurch has rewarded the Labour Government with plummeting poll figures and chaos in Downing Street, as a steady stream of ministerial resignations expose Keir Starmer’s team for being just as sleazy as the Tories they replaced.

The reshuffle, into which Starmer was bounced after the resignation of his deputy Angela Rayner for underpaying stamp duty, provided an opportunity for chief of staff Morgan McSweeney (below) to further entrench his power in the heart of government.

McSweeney is the real power within No 10, with Starmer now widely understood as a politically clueless technocrat with no genuinely held beliefs on any topic you could name.

His top adviser is a different beast. McSweeney’s vision for the Labour Party is closely aligned with the internal pressure group Blue Labour, a coterie of activists with right-wing views on immigration and crime who believe that Reform UK will be beaten through imitation.

It is in the elevation of Shabana Mahmood to Home Secretary that McSweeney’s fingerprints can be seen most clearly.

READ MORE: Keir Starmer hands loyal Scottish Labour MPs top Government jobs – see full list

She has previously expressed her “natural affinity” for the values of Blue Labour which she described as centring around “faith, flag and family”.

Perhaps the most explicit statement of her politics came when she punctured Tory attack lines by rejecting guidelines which would have allowed judges to factor in the race and background of offenders in handing down prison sentences.

That will have got McSweeney’s blood pumping as will briefings to the press that Mahmood (below) is the leader of the group of right-wing Labour MPs who believe “if we need to break things, we should break things” in the context of Britain’s relationship with the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).

The Government has already announced that it will review parts of the convention – those protecting refugees’ right to a family life and their right to protection from torture – which are seen as clogging up the courts with claims against deportations.

On economic policy, No 10 poaching Darren Jones from the Treasury was widely viewed as undermining Rachel Reeves’s position as Chancellor.

But on closer inspection, Treasury orthodoxy was actually brought closer to the heart of power, with the appointments of a long-time top official in Dan York-Smith and former deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund Baroness Shafik proving that No 10 remains as tightly wedded to right-wing economics as ever.

The only change is that Starmer now has the stronger operation, while Reeves is left with the Whitehall equivalent of colouring-in books.

It is obvious that Starmer’s great purge has seen McSweeney consolidate his ideological supremacy in Downing Street at the expense of voices who might put the Government on a more profitable course.

Over the weekend, influential figures like Foreign Affairs Committee chair Emily Thornberry and Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham were pleading for the Government to listen.

To this end, Burnham has set up a new internal pressure group called, believe it or not, Mainstream. They are trying to push Labour into a more left-wing position. I gently refer them to my previous comments on the definition of insanity.

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