In the 1980s, Labour-controlled London built 52,000 council homes. During the Tony Blair decade, just 280. It’s brought this local-election catastrophe on itself
O
ver the week to come, journalists will repeat three things until they, and you, are sick: that local elections fall next Thursday; that the results will decide the fate of Keir Starmer; and that he is set to do badly. But just how badly, and where? Last week, Starmer’s own party dropped a big clue.
The most popular politician in Britain came down from Manchester to spend the whole day campaigning in London. As Andy Burnham went from Haringey to Brixton, he rallied Labour’s footsoldiers. “Don’t go into the last two weeks with your shoulders down,” he told them. “Get your shoulders up.”
“Ah,” wrote lobby reporters, “now the King of the North is making incursions down south, such is his ambition.” But his visit is more telling than that, and more profound in its implications.
