A new wave of optimism is coursing through Labour’s ranks. Nigel Farage is, as Chancellor Rachel Reeves put it, about to spend the next six weeks “arguing with a bin”, England are tantalisingly close to a World Cup semi-final, and Andy Burnham has already boosted the party’s position in early opinion polls.
And such is the feel good factor beginning to spread through Labour’s backbenches that some MPs are now asking what would previously have been unthinkable: should Burnham call a snap election?
Political strategists and the incoming PM’s allies are suggesting that he should waste no time in calling an election, arguing that he will never be as popular than when he first enters No 10.
Shorts
The idea has been gaining fresh momentum this week after Farage’s gambit to launch a “people versus the establishment” by-election in his Clacton seat sensationally backfired when every opposition party chose not to stand a candidate.
