One man survived Keir Starmer's cabinet bloodbath - now watch him tear the country apart

There were two exceptions. Rachel Reeves is still Chancellor, though she won't be popping the champagne. She's been sneakily sidelined by the PM, who's appointed his own team of Treasury advisers to watch her every move and report back.

Reeves will still deliver November's Budget, but she won't write it. Instead, she'll carry the can when it goes wrong. Which it will.

After Angela Rayner was forced out for stamp duty dodging, Starmer seized the opportunity to chop a host of underperforming ministers too.

David Lammy lost the Foreign Office, Yvette Cooper was ejected as Home Secretary, Liz Kendall was dumped from Work and Pensions.

Never fear, they'll resurface in lesser posts. Naturally, they'll keep drawing their generous salaries and pensions. Which is more than can be said for the hundreds of thousands of workers who've lost their jobs as unemployment soars under Labour.

Yet through all the sackings, one minister proved untouchable. And when I say he's the cabinet's biggest loose cannon and ideological loon, you'll know who I mean.

Yes, it's Ed Miliband. He's still clinging to his role as Energy Secretary despite being the worst possible man for the job.

Last month I decided to tot up the ways Miliband is costing taxpayers billions. I expected to find three or four king-size blunders. I quickly reached 10, and had to stop before the list got out of hand.

During the election, Miliband promised his green energy revolution would wipe £300 off our annual bills. Instead, families face an increase of £900.

Green levies now make up a quarter of household charges, while he squanders £670million paying wind farms not to produce electricity on breezy days and leaves taxpayers on the hook for tens of billions if the Sizewell C nuclear project overruns. Which it will.

Britain already has the highest energy bills in the Western world, yet Miliband has made us the only country to ban new oil and gas exploration. His fantasy of hundreds of thousands of "green jobs" has even been rubbished by Tony Blair. Instead, he's destroying them.

So how did Ed Miliband, of all people, survive?

By axing Rayner, Starmer stripped the Labour left of their champion. He couldn't deprive them of Miliband too, or they'd be up in arms.

Miliband also shields Labour from the Green Party, whose radical new leader Zack Polanski looks set to enlarge the youth vote even more than he used to enlarge breasts.

But there's a problem. Miliband is a highly divisive figure, as he tears up the countryside to meet his net zero illusions. He may play well with green zealots, but he's driving the rest of the country mad by making us even poorer than we already are.

Voters will be reminded of the damage he's unleashed every time their gas and electricity bill lands.

Net zero is shaping up to be one of the defining issues of the next election, second only to immigration. If new home secretary Shabana Mahmood, who has a reputation for competence (rare in the Labour Party), gets a grip on the borders, voters will switch their focus to the economy, and Miliband's role in wrecking it.

It looks like Starmer - and the rest of us - are stuck with Miliband all the way to the election. Not because he's doing a good job, but because the PM is too frit to sack him.

His cowardice could backfire. Ed Miliband has destroyed Labour before. Now he's free to do it all over again. His unrealistic net zero charge will sink Starmer's already wafer-thin chances of survival.

Which would be one consolation for the rest of us. Unfortunately, Miliband will do an awful lot of damage first.