Two senior Labour MPs have suggested the prime minister may have to go within months if the government continues to perform poorly.

Sky News’ deputy political editor Sam Coates said his sources – a member of the government and a prominent politician – have “put Sir Keir Starmer on notice”.

Both warned that, if Labour performs badly in next May’s elections across Wales, Scotland and London, it could mark the end of his time in Downing Street.

Coates added: “The level of unhappiness and despair in parts of the Labour Party is so striking that right now, on the first anniversary, I am hearing from ministers in government that Starmer might have to go in months.”

Reform UK is surging in the polls in Wales, while Labour faces a threat from left-wing parties such as the Greens in London.

It comes as the prime minister made it clear that Rachel Reeves has his “complete support” as chancellor and remains integral to his project, Sky News’s political editor Beth Rigby understands.

She looked visibly upset during Prime Minister’s Questions, with a spokesperson claiming she had been affected by a “personal matter”.

A day earlier, Sir Keir’s controversial welfare bill was passed despite a sizeable rebellion from Labour MPs, with major U-turns meaning a new £5bn black hole has appeared in the country’s finances.

One senior figure told Rigby that the pair were as “as close politically” as any chancellor and prime minister have ever been.

“She is going absolutely nowhere,” they added.

Ms Reeves’s tears sent markets spiralling, with the value of the pound and long-term government bonds falling sharply.

Later in the day Sir Keir, said Ms Reeves will be chancellor for a “very long time to come”.

The prime minister said it was “absolutely wrong” to suggest her tearful appearance in the Commons related to the welfare U-turn.

“It’s got nothing to do with politics, nothing to do with what’s happened this week. It was a personal matter for her,” he said while speaking to the BBC’s podcast Political Thinking with Nick Robinson.

“I’m not going to intrude on her privacy by talking to you about that. It is a personal matter.”

Read more from Sky News:
Just 25% of public think Starmer will win next election
Analysis: Emotional Reeves a reminder of tough decisions ahead

Asked if she will remain in post, he said: “She will be chancellor by the time this is broadcast, she will be chancellor for a very long time to come, because this project that we’ve been working on to change the Labour party, to win the election, change the country, that is a project which the chancellor and I’ve been working on together.”

He said Ms Reeves has done a “fantastic job” and added: “She and I work together, we think together. In the past, there have been examples – I won’t give any specific – of chancellors and prime ministers who weren’t in lockstep. We’re in lockstep.”

Sir Keir Starmer will set out his 10-year vision for the NHS in what the government says is “one of the most seismic shifts” in the health service’s history.

He will pledge three main facets of the plan: moving care into the community, digitising the NHS, and a focus on sickness prevention.

The prime minister will announce neighbourhood health services will be rolled out across England to improve access to the NHS and to shift care out of overstrained hospitals.

PM ‘might have to go in months’ – politics latest

Sir Keir has already promised thousands more GPs will be trained, and to end the 8am “scramble” for an appointment.

He also previously said his government will bring the NHS into the digital age, with “groundbreaking” new tools to support GPs rolled out over the next two years – including AI to take notes, draft letters and enter data.

And he will promise new contracts that will encourage and allow GP practices to cover a wider geographical area, so small practices will get more support.

Unite, one of the UK’s largest healthcare unions, welcomed the plan cautiously but said staff need to be the focus to ensure people are better looked after.

Read more:
Hundreds of NHS quangos to be axed
How pilot scheme from Brazil is helping NHS

‘Reform or die’

Sir Keir said: “The NHS should be there for everyone, whenever they need it.

“But we inherited a health system in crisis, addicted to a sticking plaster approach, and unable to face up to the challenges we face now, let alone in the future.

“That ends now. Because it’s reform or die.”

He said the government’s plan “will fundamentally rewire and futureproof our NHS, so that it puts care on people’s doorsteps, harnesses game-changing tech and prevents illness in the first place”.

The PM said it would not be an “overnight fix”, but claimed Labour are “already turning the tide on years of decline”, pointing towards more than four million extra appointments, 1,900 more GPs, and waiting lists at a two-year low.

“But there’s more to come,” he promised. “This government is giving patients easier, quicker and more convenient care, wherever they live.”

Neighbourhood health services

The newly announced neighbourhood health services will provide “pioneering teams” in local communities, so patients can more conveniently access a full range of healthcare services close to home.

Local areas will be encouraged to trial innovative schemes like community outreach door-to-door to detect early signs of illness and reduce pressure on GPs and A&E.

The aim is to eventually have new health centres open 12 hours a day, six days a week to offer GP services as well as diagnostics, post-operative care and rehab.

They will also offer services like debt advice, employment support, stop smoking help or weight management.

More NHS dentists

Dentists will also be part of the plan, with dental care professionals part of the neighbourhood teams.

Dental “therapists” will carry out check-ups, treatments and referrals, while dental nurses could give education and advice to parents or work with schools and community groups.

Newly qualified dentists will be required to practice in the NHS for a minimum period, which they have said will be three years.

Sky News analysis shows that aid distributions by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) are associated with a significant increase in deaths.

Warning: This article contains descriptions of people being killed and images of blood on a hospital floor.

The US and Israeli-backed group has been primarily responsible for aid distribution since Israel lifted its 11-week blockade of the Gaza Strip last month.

The GHF distributes aid from four militarised Secure Distribution Sites (SDSs) – three of which are in the far south of the Gaza Strip. Under the previous system, the UN had distributed aid through hundreds of sites across the territory.

According to Gaza’s health ministry, 600 Palestinians have been killed while seeking aid from GHF sites, which charities and the UN have branded “death traps”.

The UN put the figure at 410, but has not updated this number since 24 June. Both the UN and health ministry source their figures from hospitals near the aid sites.

Speaking to Sky News, GHF chief Johnnie Moore disputed that these deaths were connected with his organisation’s operations.

“Almost anything that happens in the Gaza Strip is going to take place in proximity to something,” he said.

“Our effort is actually working despite a disinformation campaign, that is very deliberate and meant to shut down our efforts.

“We just want to feed Gazans. That’s the only thing that we want to do.”

However, new analysis by Sky’s Data & Forensics Unit shows that deaths in Gaza have spiked during days with more GHF distributions.

On days when GHF conducts just two distributions or fewer, health officials report an average of 48 deaths and 189 injuries across the Gaza Strip.

On days with five or six GHF distributions, authorities have reported almost three times as many casualties.

Out of 77 distributions at GHF sites between 5 June and 1 July, Sky News found that 23 ended in reports of bloodshed (30%).

At one site, SDS4 in the central Gaza Strip, as many as half of all distributions were followed by reports of fatal shootings.

Sky News spoke to one woman who had been attending SDS4 for 10 days straight.

“I witnessed death first-hand – bodies lay bleeding on the ground all around me,” says Huda.

“This is not right. Food should be delivered to UN warehouses, and this entire operation must be shut down.”

Huda says that the crowds are forced to dodge bombs and bullets “just to get a bag of rice or pasta”.

“You may come back, you may not,” she says. “I was injured by shrapnel in my leg. Despite that, I go back, because we really have nothing in our tent.”

One of the deadliest incidents at SDS4 took place in the early hours of 24 June.

According to eyewitnesses, Israeli forces opened fire as people advanced towards aid trucks carrying food to the site, which was due to open.

“It was a massacre,” said Ahmed Halawa. He said that tanks and drones fired at people “even as we were fleeing”. At least 31 people were killed, according to medics at two nearby hospitals.

Footage from that morning shows the floor of one of the hospitals, al Awda, covered in blood.

The IDF says it is reviewing the incident.

Issues of crowd control

Unnamed soldiers who served near the aid sites told Israeli newspaper Haaretz that they were instructed to use gunfire as a method of crowd control.

An IDF spokesperson told Sky News that it “strongly rejected” the accusations that its forces were instructed to deliberately shoot at civilians.

“To be clear, IDF directives prohibit deliberate attacks on civilians,” the spokesperson said, adding that the incidents are “being examined by the relevant IDF authorities”.

Eyewitness testimony and footage posted to social media suggest that crowd control is a frequent problem at the sites.

The video below, uploaded on 12 June, shows a crowd rushing into SDS1, in Gaza’s far southwest. What sounds like explosions are audible in the background.

Footage from the same site, uploaded on 15 June, shows Palestinians searching for food among hundreds of aid parcels scattered across the ground.

Sam Rose, the director of UNRWA operations in Gaza, describes the distribution process as a “free-for-all”.

“What they’re doing is they’re loading up the boxes on the ground and then people just rush in,” he says.

Sky News has found that the sites typically run out of food within just nine minutes. In a quarter of cases (23%), the food is finished by the time the site was due to officially open.

Confusing communications

Sky News analysis suggests that the issue may be being compounded by poor communications from GHF.

Between 19 June and 1 July, 86% of distributions were announced with less than 30 minutes’ notice. One in five distributions was not announced at all prior to the site opening.

The GHF instructs Palestinians to take particular routes to the aid centres, and to wait at specified locations until the official opening times.

The map for SDS1 instructs Palestinians to take a narrow agricultural lane that no longer exists, while the maps for SDS2 and SDS3 give waiting points that are deep inside IDF-designated combat zones.

The maps do not make the boundaries of combat zones clear or specify when it is safe for Palestinians to enter them.

The same is true for SDS4, the only distribution site outside Gaza’s far south. Its waiting point is located 1.2 miles (2km) inside an IDF combat zone.

The official map also provides no access route from the northern half of Gaza, including Gaza City, across the heavily militarised Netzarim corridor.

“They don’t know what they’re doing,” says UNRWA’s Sam Rose.

“They don’t have anyone working on these operations who has any experience of operating, of administering food distributions because anyone who did have that experience wouldn’t want to be part of it because this isn’t how you treat people.”

Once the sites are officially open, Palestinians are allowed to travel the rest of the way.

The distance from waiting point to aid site is typically over a kilometre, making it difficult for Palestinians to reach the aid site before the food runs out.

The shortest distance is at SDS4 – 689m. At a pace of 4km per hour, this would take around 10 minutes to cover.

But of the 18 distributions at this site which were announced in advance, just two lasted longer than 10 minutes before the food ran out.

“We don’t have time to pick anything up,” says Huda, who has been visiting SDS4 for the past 10 days.

In all that time, she says, all she had managed to take was a small bag of rice.

“I got it from the floor,” she says. “We didn’t get anything else.”

More than 200 charities and non-governmental organisations have called for the closure of GHF and the reinstatement of previous, UN-led mechanisms of aid distribution.

In a joint statement issued on 1 July, some of the world’s largest humanitarian groups accused the GHF of violating international humanitarian principles. They said the scheme was forcing two million people into overcrowded, militarised zones where they face daily gunfire.

Additional reporting by OSINT producers Sam Doak and Lina-Serene.

The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.