I expect he thought it was showing strength to support one's colleagues.

Instead he showed weakness. Strength would be to act first and expel him before the story broke. Of course innocent until proven guilty should stand, but there would be nothing wrong with saying something like "I've known him for a long time and always found him to be a trustworthy individual and am not personally aware of any wrongdoing. However, such allegations must be taken seriously and fully investigated. If it turns out that the right honourable gentleman has been involved in anything untoward, the British government will remove him from his post and I personally will be very disappointed and surprised but the integrity of the government and it's officials is of the utmost importance."

...but only if he didn't already have the answers.

Why can politicians not just operate in good faith and for the best interests of the electorate. It seems we never get politicians who truly care about making life better for the average person and act according to their conscience. We only get politicians who play games and cover for each other while enriching themselves by pandering to business and the rich, as they engage in fraud and crimes that the rest of us would serve time for but they get a slap on the wrist simply because just by being a politician, they earn the trust of the establishment.

Can someone from inside the UK tell what the odds are this will trigger another election/power change?

Hmm. This headline should have been ‘Number 10 knew’ not ‘Starmer knew’. You could try to argue that they should be the same thing but obviously they’re not.

There are obviously communication problems in number ten that Starmer needs to sort out, but this headline is just agenda pushing.

Considering Starmer already gets off politically on hurting children, I would not be at all surprised if he was a nonce too. It's very noncey behaviour to be sticking his neck out for other pedos like that.

Zero surprise.

This is the guy who is having old ladies arrested as terrorists for demonstrating against a mass murdering of children which he himself actively supports.

People who are so strongly in favor of child mass murder aren't going to care about children getting raped.

Starmer seems to actually be beating Boris Johnson is the "how low will you go"-scale, which is incredible given that Boris is extraordinarily amoral and a complete total hypocrite wanker.

Jesus fucking christ.

them files need releasing

Who?