Starmer has put Scottish Labour’s resurgence at risk

W

hen arguing with nationalist friends about independence, I keep a killer argument up my sleeve. I wait for the right moment and then I ask: why rescue 250,000 children from poverty in Scotland when you can rescue 4.2 million children from poverty across the UK?

Of all my lines of reasoning, this one makes my friends hesitate. They are mostly socialists before they are nationalists. Hungry children are an offence to decency wherever they are. As John Hume, the Nobel peace prize winner, once said: “You can’t eat a flag.”

So I have a question for Sir Keir Starmer. After your comments at the weekend on the two-child benefit cap, what do I now say to my friends?

I can see why strategists around Starmer