SIR KEIR STARMER is coming under mounting pressure from leading Labour critics to his left as the government’s polling woes only grow deeper.

Former deputy premier Angela Rayner has demanded that the government hold firm on leasehold reform pledges amid intense lobbying of ministers by wealthy landlords.

And Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham called on Labour to be more assertive in taking on the “new British right” on the issue of “who broke Britain.”

These interventions by the two top contenders from Labour’s “soft left” to take the reins from Sir Keir point to the mounting dissatisfaction with the government over both policy and political positioning.

Ms Rayner wrote in the Guardian that investors were making killing out of household leasehold scams while “doing absolutely nothing.”

But Chancellor Rachel Reeves has been blocking action for fear of scaring off big money.

In a speech, Mr Burnham argued: “This is a decisive moment in our politics when the British left should go out confidently and win the argument as to who broke Britain and what will fix it.”

He added that the country had been wrecked by “the four horsemen of Britain’s apocalypse: deregulation, privatisation, austerity and Brexit.”

Leadership speculation has been stoked by the latest polls showing Labour trailing both Reform and the Tories and polling roughly equal to the Greens around 17 to 19 per cent, a level at which most Labour MPs are doomed.

As things stand Ms Rayner is likely to be the standard-bearer in any contest, since Mr Burnham is not an MP and hence ineligible to run.