Keir we go...2 years to banish the Blues

FAIRNESS, decency, competence and hope are valuable political and economic currencies soaring in value for Keir Starmer while Liz Truss trashes the Tory Party’s reputation and the pound.

Labour’s leader can’t believe his luck that the Conservatives declared class war on the country, championing a wealthy tiny minority over the struggling overwhelming majority.

People aren’t stupid and know they’ll pay for bags of swag gifted to a well-heeled elite, including high-rollers bankrolling the Tories, by Truss and sidekick Kwasi Kwarteng.

Dividing lines between Labour and the Cons don’t come redder or thicker than fat bonuses for bankers when out-of-pocket workers are told to tighten their belts.

The Tory special financial operation is a suicide note, a moment as momentous as the Winter of Discontent was for Jim Callaghan’s Labour in 1979 or sleaze for John Major’s Cons in 1997.

Suddenly, the widespread expectation is that Labour will certainly win the next election.

And that brings opportunities and problems...

The opportunities are an opening to be bold, imaginative and vivid. To paint in high-definition colours how Labour in power would improve the lives of tens of millions of Britons.

The problems begin with taking fewer risks and end with numbing caution if the party relies on the Tories to lose the election instead of Labour being determined to go for gold.

Nervous Shadow Cabinet Ministers fear that dropping commitments to take power, water and mail back into public ownership signal no commitment to a fundamental and irreversible shift in the balance of power and wealth in favour of working people and their families.

There’s opposition by the leader to electoral reform he once favoured.

There’s an electoral logic in Starmer pledging to retain 1p Income Tax and 1.25% National Insurance cuts while reimposing the 45p rate on those topping £150,000 a year.

Yet what, for instance, of the biggest obscene Tory bung of them all when a cancelled Corporation Tax increase gives the wealthy and large corporations a £19billion a year wealth-fare handout.

That tax cash could fund many nurses, teachers, pay rises and council houses, or even reduce the national debt.

Starmer is certainly a man with a plan for No 10.

The energy price freeze and windfall tax on North Sea blood profits generated by Putin’s invasion of Ukraine showed radicalism is appealing. His quiet moderation also appears a much safer bet than Truss’ reckless destruction of any pretence the Tories are a party of competence, responsibility and sound money. Conservative levelling down the 99% to turbocharge a 1% already filling its boots is scorched earth tactics from a despised regime inflicting terrible damage. What Starmer and Labour need to set out is precisely what they would do. Practical green policies are welcome but the party needs at least five specific pledge card-style compelling reasons and an overall emotional reason to vote Labour. I recall around the time of the Tory pasty tax budget that right-wingers predicted Ed Milliband and Labour would win the next election. It didn’t. Politics feels different this time, with Truss misreading the national mood.

Starmer isn’t complacent. Far from it. But up to two years is a long time before the next election. Anything could happen, alas.