Close Starmer ally declines to say if he will lead Labour into next election

One of Keir Starmer’s closest aides has declined to say whether he would lead his party into the next election amid mounting calls for him to resign. The prime minister is “listening to colleagues” who are asking him to set out a timetable for departure but would make his own decisions about the way forward, the prime minister’s chief secretary has said. Darren Jones, a close ally of Starmer, warned the prime minister’s rivals that it was a “gruelling job”, saying: “Anybody who thinks that they can just walk into the job of prime minister and, like the second coming of the messiah, fix all of our problems probably hasn’t really thought carefully enough about how difficult it is.” More than 70 Labour MPs have publicly called for Starmer to stand down after dire election results across England, Wales and Scotland last week. Asked if Starmer would be leading Labour into the next election, Jones said: “I’m not going to get ahead of any decision that the prime minister may or may not take. Darren Jones: ‘He was very clear yesterday that he will not be walking away.’ Photograph: Wiktor Szymanowicz/Future Publishing/ “He was very clear yesterday that he will not be walking away, as some of my colleagues have asked him to do. We’ve got over 400 Labour MPs in the House of Commons. …