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Somewhere in the Palace of Westminster, there's a portrait of Jeremy Corbyn which was painted by a Russian artist, using her breasts. I know because I commissioned it just over a decade ago. Back then, I was a political journalist who focused more on the Westminster Bubble than anything on the outside. But I never lost sight of how everything I reported on affected the people of the UK.

Now, obviously, Labour has a very different kind of leader. Instead of side-eye and dismissive glares at PMQs like Corbyn, Keir Starmer always comes across like a dad who's angry that you're awake past midnight at a sleepover. And I daresay that's how he will be when he stands outside No 10 and announces his resignation. I will be screwed if this happens between the time I write this piece and its publication, especially because a few hours is a long time in politics.

But let's imagine Starmer is still in power by the time you read this and he's doing his best to be a Theresa May-style "strong and stable" leader.

I wonder if he still thinks he knows how the people of the UK have been affected by the things he has done, or hasn't done, and the decisions he has made.

I also despair at the Labour MPs who seem firmly in the Westminster Bubble. They have lost sight of the fact that while they are working through their party process for removing their leader, ordinary working people are suffering from Labour's inaction.

If change is to happen, then it needs to happen now - not with an agreed timetable of "just before party conference so everyone can be optimistic while in a hotel in Liverpool in September".

They need to put the country before their party and do what's best for the people.

A decade on from the Corbyn portrait, my hair is almost non-existent, and I'm firmly away from the Westminster Bubble in my role as a patient with incurable bowel cancer.

And, as such, I see a lot of the same qualities in my cancer team as I do in the Labour MPs. They are undoubtedly far cleverer than me but rarely seem to appreciate that patients are more than a series of blood tests on a screen.

It makes me think of Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves poring over a bar chart about what the economy would do if they made a certain decision, but not how it would affect people.

And, like the MPs, my world-leading cancer hospital seems afraid to do anything quickly.

They are "wait and see what happens" over the issue of cancer fighting back against the chemotherapy treatment I've been on for several years.

And they seem to be "ignore it, and he might die" over a complaint I was expecting a response to back in December 2024.

But the British people don't have time to wait. While MPs are squabbling over parts of their leadership process, people in the real world are struggling to survive.

We need a new prime minister now.