Labour must rise to a historic responsibility by choosing a leader who can win over the nation. The alternative is Farage on the steps of No 10
T
hey’re looking like the gang that couldn’t shoot straight. Labour’s upper echelon, both the prime minister and his rivals, have served up a performance of such political ineptitude, walking into doors and tripping over their own feet, that it’s hard to argue with the cabinet minister who glumly told me this was the week when the government did itself damage that can never be repaired, if not the week that Labour confirmed its defeat at the next general election.
As so often, the lead was set from the top. Keir Starmer’s allies had billed his speech on Monday as a major address, one that would meet the scale of the moment and recognise the need for Labour to chart a new course, given the shellacking the party had suffered at the hands of voters in England, Scotland and Wales on 7 May.
The text acknowledged it was time to banish the previous timidity, accepting that “incremental change won’t cut it”. And yet the speech was incrementalism itself. Its big new offer on Europe, for example, was not a declaration that in a world in which the US has become an unreliable ally or worse, the previous red lines, blocking British reentry into the customs union and single market, make no sense. Instead, it was the promise of a “youth experience scheme”. Everyone knows Britain has big problems that require big solutions, but this was small. Instead of dispelling the doubts about Starmer, it vindicated them.
