The name Sir Anthony Meyer has become a minor footnote in political history despite the former Tory MP playing a pivotal role in ending the premiership of Margaret Thatcher.
Back in 1989 the pro-EU Tory MP ran as a so-called “stalking horse candidate” for the Conservative Party leadership against Margaret Thatcher to undermine her iron rule of the party.
While she easily won it opened the door to the challenge from Michael Heseltine a year later which ended her time in Downing Street.
Now 37 years later Catherine West, the Labour MP for Hornsey and Friern Barnet, has become Labour’s equivalent of Meyer, but Labour MPs are unlikely to wait another year to get rid of Sir Keir Starmer.
The problem with Labour rules is that unlike the Tories there is no simple process now of holding a vote of confidence in the leader.
Back in 1989 the Tories had a similar problem which is why a stalking horse candidate was needed. Subsequent to that, the rules came in allowing the 1922 Committee, which represents Tory MPs, to arrange a vote of confidence if enough letters asking for one are received.
But with Labour a full leadership contest has to be initiated. That requires 83 MPs to nominate a candidate to run. It is a laborious process and one which involves potential rivals to the leader taking a huge personal risk.
This is one of the reasons why Labour has been so poor at removing sitting prime ministers or leaders in general even when they were heading to catastrophic defeat.
Gordon Brown, who has just been roped in by Sir Keir to try to save his premiership, knows about this very well after the plotters who sought to replace him with former foreign secretary David Miliband lost their nerve in 2009.
But what Ms West has done in effect is given permission for the big beasts to come in and take part in a contest without initiating it themselves.
This means health secretary Wes Streeting and former deputy prime minister Angela Rayner who both are ready to launch leadership bids can now put their hats into the ring without being accused of disloyalty or being the Brutus figure that wielded the knife.
As things play out next week it will be interesting to see if they are willing to make the plunge.
But even before Ms West made her announcement there had been some looking to defence minister Al Carns, a former Royal Marines commander, to be the stalking horse.
The problem there was that Mr Carns thinks he can win and did not want to just open the door for others to have a go.
Ms West will not become leader of the Labour Party and prime minister but her actions this weekend make it almost certain that somebody will replace Sir Keir before the summer.
