Jess Phillips has said Sir Keir Starmer has the “resilience of a cockroach” in a her first interview following her resignation. On 12 May, the former safeguarding minister stepped down from the prime minister’s government. “I’m not seeing the change I think I, and the country expect, and so cannot continue to serve as a minister,” she wrote in her resignation letter. Ms Phillips was questioned on the likelihood of Sir Keir surviving as prime minister when she appeared on the ITV Peston show on Wednesday (20 May). Likening him to a “cockroach in a nuclear war”, Phillips said: “ Who knows what is going to happen? I think that anyone making predictions about the last couple of weeks in politics are probably eating their hats now.”