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STARMER HIT BY TAX STAMMER Sunak rises as Boris joke gets ever less funny

REMEMBER that goal Michael Owen scored against Argentina in 1998?

Great finish. The pub I was in went mad. But amid all the celebrations I remember feeling a note of sadness as it finally dawned on me that my international career was over. Ah well, I thought, another Guinness.

I was reminded of that moment this week, watching Boris Johnson watching his Chancellor Rishi Sunak deliver his mini-budget.

As it unfolded, Johnson watched with a mixture of pride and respect for Mr Sunak. But there was a momentary flash of horror when it dawned on him what the future holds.

If Mr Johnson was carrying out a risk assessment at the moment, I reckon he would put Mr Sunak at the top of his list. It’s all his own fault.

Every time Mr Johnson appears his obvious flaws are highlighted and it gets clearer and clearer that he is not up to the task of being PM.

He is the Big Mouth Billy Bass of politics. Hilariously funny at first, then mildly wearing, then irritating, then you end up wondering why you had it in the house in the first place.

Total opposite of the Chancellor. It is early days but Mr Sunak is already been talked up by politicians, the press, and the bookies as very much in contention for a move from Number 11 to Number 10. Whitehall insiders say that Mr Johnson’s team is more worried about Mr Sunak than they are about Keir Starmer.

As polling shows, the public don’t think Mr

THERE is a lot of work to do with Labour at the moment.

Since Keir Starmer took over with a mission to reunify the fractured party, tensions were ever so temporarily buried.

But now they threaten to resurface. In the space of seven days we’ve seen senior members

Johnson has done a great job with the pandemic.

But they think Mr Sunak is handling the crisis smoothly. We like people who are doing their best against bad odds. He’s also doing things that are totally out of character for a Tory chancellor. Borrowing massively – record levels in fact – and promising huge spends. I woke up to headlines on Monday telling me there was £1.57billion to save the arts. Incredible. I thought normal Conservative policy was the free market – only the strong shall survive, etc. But no. Mr Sunak back a wealth tax, then U-turn on it, then back it again.

Labour insiders say the reasons are twofold.

First it leaves them open to attacks from the Tories, who can trot out the old line about going after people’s savings.

And second, it smacks of the has found a magic money tree that makes Labour’s look positively bonsai. Even the horrific rate of unemployment and job losses are not sticking – for the moment anyway.

Mr Sunak’s emergence is also a problem for Labour. They have being preparing for a fight against Mr Johnson in 2024.

That would involve Sir Keir coming up against a beleaguered Mr Johnson – worn out from the recession, Brexit fallout, and whatever other horrors the next four years have in store.

So that would be a Starmer win. But

Corbyn era. But falling out over wealth tax seems strange.

Anneliese Dodds, the shadow chancellor, said: “Those with the broadest shoulders should be bearing more of a contribution.”

And that seems reasonable – whichever side of the party you’re on. an election against a Tory party led by Mr Sunak is a different kettle of fish.

It is, I suppose, very early in the election cycle to start taking like this.

But Labour should be having a look at the warning signs and the danger of a move to the centre when Mr Sunak is showing signs of outflanking them from, of all places, the left.

It’s too early for policy but they need to be ready for an election against a man liked by the public, quietly doing a hard job, who has effectively just taken the entire country out for a Monday night Nando’s. Tough one.