Labour cannot rely on a Covid bounce to win the 2024 election

BORIS Johnson has avoided, for the most part, channelling his great political hero, Winston Churchill, during the coronavirus pandemic. And although parallels have sometimes been drawn during the crisis with the threats Britain faced in World War Two, for the most part those engaged in battling the virus have, despite many temptations, steered clear of wartime analogies.

Today, however, Sir Keir Starmer is due to make unashamed comparisons between the post-Covid years and Britain in the wake of World War Two. In a major speech on the nation after coronavirus, the Labour leader will talk of rebuilding a country worthy of the sacrifices of the British people “just as we did in 1945.”

There is a very good historical reason for him to take that position. After Britain and the Allies defeated the Nazis in World War Two, it was not Conservative Winston Churchill – who had successfully led a wartime coalition government – who triumphed at the 1945 general election, but Labour’s Clement Attlee.

Sir Keir clearly sees the potential to use what he sees as errors by the Johnson government and his own measured response to Covid-19 as a similar springboard to power, once coronavirus is beaten and Britain goes to the polls again in a general election. It makes for a powerful message. But the circumstances in 2024, when the next general election is due, are likely to be very different from those in 1945 and, indeed, very different from the second half of 2021, when – fingers crossed – we should be past the worst of coronavirus and beginning to see a return to normal life.

In 1945, weary of war, Britons were happy to thank Winston Churchill for his leadership in time of conflict, but back a change at the top for a very different set of challenges. In 2024, Boris Johnson will, all being well, have already made major progress in rebuilding Britain after the biggest crisis for generations. He will hope to present the results of that work to the electorate.

As Sir Keir properly acknowledged yesterday, he cannot guess the state of the economy, the strength or otherwise of public services or the mood of the nation in nearly four years from now. Hopefully, things will look very different.

But the Labour leader is wrong if he thinks the Conservatives are going to sit on their hands once coronavirus is defeated. Boris Johnson had ambitious plans to remake Britain after Brexit when he won in December, 2019. Many of his policies outlined in the run-up to the last election have, obviously, been put on hold. He will want to re-set the clock and put them in place – albeit against a background of a terrible pandemic and huge economic damage – just as soon as he is able.

The next general election is not going to be a battle to rebuild Britain after Covid-19, because that process should already be well underway

The challenges for Labour, the Conservatives – and all the other parties putting up candidates – will be very different in four years’ time. Sir Keir’s post-war analogies make for good soundbites, but that is unlikely to be the battleground on which the next election is fought.