PRIME MINISTER Sir Keir Starmer has conceded he has lost control of his government as he became embroiled in a fresh scandal over turning a blind eye to friends of paedophiles.

A close ally of the premier admitted that he no longer had the strength to sack Health Secretary Wes Streeting, the principal plotter coveting his crown.

“I don’t think he can sack Wes. I don’t think he has the strength to sack anyone right now. He’s too weak,” the source told the Financial Times.

Mr Streeting has also indicated that this week’s rallying of support for Sir Keir was only temporary, and that the Health Secretary would make his anticipated move for the top job before long, possibly as soon as the end of the month.

The Prime Minister was taunted by opposition parties in bad-tempered Commons questions over his decision to wave through a peerage for his former communications chief, Matthew Doyle.

This was after Mr Doyle had been revealed to have campaigned for the election of a friend already charged with child sex offences in 2017.

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey told Sir Keir: “To appoint one paedophile supporter cannot be excused as misfortune. To appoint two shows a catastrophic lack of judgement.”

Scottish National Party Westminster leader Stephen Flynn said: “He’s essentially rolled the same pitch in relation to Matthew Doyle as he did with Peter Mandelson, that they weren’t clear with him.

“He appears to be the most gullible former director of public prosecutions in history.”

And Tory leader Kemi Badenoch taunted the premier with “stuffing government with paedophile apologists.”

Sir Keir claimed he had been again blindsided, as with Mr Mandelson, by less than frank disclosure. “Matthew Doyle did not give a full account of his actions,” he said, adding that he had removed the Labour whip from the peer.

A Downing Street spokesperson later claimed that there was “no established precedent for withdrawing a peerage nomination after the announcement stage,” amid claim and counter-claim about what Sir Keir knew about Lord Doyle’s campaigning efforts and when.

Labour Party chairwoman Anna Turley called on Mr Doyle to lose his peerage, as Mr Mandelson has done, but the Labour Party has embarked on another investigation instead.

Lord Doyle has apologised for his continuing association with Sean Morton, who had been claiming he was innocent of child sex charges when seeking election to a local authority post in Scotland.

Mr Doyle campaigned for Mr Morton even after he had been charged. Mr Morton subsequently pleaded guilty, including to possessing indecent images of children as young as 10.

Sir Keir left the Commons chamber, where he had appeared on the verge of losing his temper, to a frosty meeting of women Labour MPs. 

They urged him to appoint a woman as his “first secretary of state,” a title presently unused.

Speaking after the meeting, former Labour deputy leader Harriet Harman said women MPs had expressed the belief that there was a “continuum” of misogyny in the party.

“It’s not just Peter Mandelson. There’s a continuum, and at every level. So it’s like systemic change required, was the feeling,” she said.

And Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar doubled down on his call for Sir Keir to quit.

 “I stated my view and I stand by it,” he said. “People in Scotland deserve to know what my standards are and what I would do differently if I was elected as first minister.”

The latest More in Common opinion poll shows Labour continuing to trail the hard-right Reform UK ahead of critical elections for devolved assemblies and local authorities in May.

It had Nigel Farage’s party on 30 per cent, with Labour on 23, the Tories on 21, the Liberal Democrats on 12, and the Greens on 10.