Labour

‘Only a Conservative government, led by me, will not put our hard-earned economic stability at risk,’ said Rishi Sunak as he announced a general election on the steps of Downing Street in the pouring rain. Upon these words, the Labour anthem ‘Things Can Only Get Better’ boomed out from the street. The din made the rest of his speech nearly inaudible. His suit jacket went from wet to soaking. ‘It’s bizarre,’ said one former minister. ‘How are we supposed to trust No. 10’s judgment when no one in the group even knows what an umbrella is?

At 8.30 a.m. each morning, Keir Starmer holds a meeting with his inner circle to go over the business of the day. Once, these meetings were mainly filled with unelected aides, but now they are attended by senior shadow ministers, such as Labour’s campaign co-ordinator and Blairite old-timer Pat McFadden or the shadow cabinet office minister and Brown-ite Jonathan Ashworth. Starmer’s deputy, Angela Rayner, may drop in too. If Rachel Reeves can’t make it, one of her shadow treasury aides goes in her place. The new setup is one of the many measures Sue Gray has brought in since she was appointed Starmer’s chief of staff a year ago. Her aim is to strengthen ties between the Labour leader and his shadow cabinet.

Ann Clwyd, who has died aged 86, never held ministerial office or high office of any kind. Unless, of course, you count a stint as chair of the parliamentary Labour party, though that is more of a penance than a power trip. She did a few tours on the opposition front bench under Neil Kinnock, John Smith and, briefly, Tony Blair, but she was too independent-minded and probably not metro enough for a New Labour red box. That she was rebelling against the government a few months into its first term only confirmed that. Voting against an early Harriet Harman benefit cut, designed to force single parents into the labour market, Clwyd pointed out there were ‘about 1,500 single parents and only 200 jobs available’ in her Cynon Valley constituency.

What do you do when you’re in a hole? Stop digging. Apparently Emily Thornberry didn’t get the memo. The Shadow Attorney General was wheeled out on the Easter Monday media round to defend Labour’s attack advert which claims that Rishi Sunak isn’t tough enough on criminals convicted of child sexual abuse. Thornberry did her best to sound authoritative and lawyerly but came unstuck multiple times during her seven-minute grilling on Radio 4’s Today programme. After allowing Thornberry to sound off on the importance of overhauling the sentencing guidelines on child sexual abuse, host Justin Webb asked her about Sir Keir Starmer’s own role in drawing them up.

Today Kwasi Kwarteng attempted to calm concerns in his party over the fallout from the not-so-mini Budget – telling MPs: 'We are one team and need to remain focused'.  That message is likely to face some resistance after the latest polling. Tonight the Times has published a new YouGov poll which gives Labour a 33-point lead. Yes, you read that right. It is thought to be the largest poll lead enjoyed by a political party since the late 1990s. It comes after a poll earlier this week gave Labour a 17-point lead. According to the survey, just 37 per cent of 2019 Conservative voters would stick with the party were an election held now. Labour's poll lead is so large that you can expect more talk of letters going in and questions about her longevity in No.

Wednesday morning at Labour conference is back to being the graveyard shift, with the delegates who are still there nursing hangovers and sharing videos of the speakers on the stage doing karaoke the night before. But this morning's session covered two of the most important public services from two of the party's rising stars – Wes Streeting and Bridget Phillipson. Streeting was in the gravest of the graveyard slots this morning Streeting is everywhere (including in the karaoke videos), and some of his colleagues are a bit irritated that he seems to have been anointed as the next Labour leader. Phillipson, though, is the one to watch because she unnerves the Conservatives and is applauded for being tough in her education brief.

Is nationalisation the vote-winner which Keir Starmer believes it to be? We will find out in due course, but my hunch is that the British public as a whole care a lot less about who owns the train carriages they ride in and the power stations which generate their electricity than Labour MPs do.  No one who remembers British Rail will be under any illusions that public ownership is a panacea What they care about rather more, surely, is whether their trains arrive on time and whether their lights stay on. No one who remembers British Rail will be under any illusions that public ownership is a panacea for a functioning railway, and neither will anyone who remembers the three-day week be fooled into thinking a public-owned power industry guarantees keeping the lights on.

Tonight’s YouGov poll in the Times is brilliant news for Keir Starmer ahead of his conference speech tomorrow. It has Labour 17 points ahead, its biggest lead since the company started polling in 2001. These numbers, following the market reaction to the statement, are an awful start To be sure, the numbers reflect more voter disappointment with the government than a sudden bout of Starmer mania. Some 68 per cent of voters said the government was managing the economy badly. Only 12 per cent thought the ‘mini-Budget’ is affordable. Just 19 per cent said it was fair, against 57 per cent who thought it was not fair. And 69 per cent of those who voted Tory in 2019 opposed the scrapping of the 45p tax rate.