Wrong time to judge Labour’s Sir Keir as a potential Prime Minister

THE single big idea in Sir Keir Starmer’s major speech yesterday, designed to reboot his leadership of the Labour Party and position him as a genuine alternative Prime Minister, is a good one.

A British recovery bond, in which people could invest in the expectation of a decent return, could potentially raise millions in the short term to help the nation rebuild after Covid.

Echoing the post-war bonds of the 1940s, it sits well with Sir Keir’s attempts to rekindle the memory of his predecessor, Clement Attlee, who won the 1945 election and helped the nation recover from the horrors of conflict. Attlee is credited with creating a fairer nation with a more equitable distribution of wealth and opportunity. Sir Keir would like to be seen in the same way.

He has made a stuttering start to leading the Labour Party, welcome only – initially at least – for not being Jeremy Corbyn, whose divisive policies helped Labour to one of its worst-ever defeats in the December 2019 election.

But he has also had one of the biggest problems ever to face an incoming leader of the opposition – a global pandemic in which the electorate is, understandably, willing the government of the day to get them out of a crisis and is prepared to cut them a fair bit of slack in the process.

Sir Keir and his front-bench colleagues have had to decide whether to declare criticism over the Government’s handling of coronavirus essentially off-limits, or wade in and attack Boris Johnson and the Cabinet when they think it worthwhile.

Despite landing a few blows, the overall strategy of targeted attacks on the Government over its policies to deal with the pandemic has largely failed. Sir Keir now trails Boris Johnson in the most recent poll when voters are asked who they trust most as PM.

That is not necessarily down to a failure on the part of the Labour leader, but he should learn a valuable lesson. While his party and the commentators are eager for him to make a mark early on in his tenure at the head of the Labour Party, it has been convincingly shown that trying to break through at the moment puts him on a hiding to nothing.

As the vaccine roll-out continues, case rates continue to fall and the likelihood of an escape from the Covid crisis beckons, most people are going to give credit to the Government for what looks – fingers crossed – like a successful end-point to this public health emergency.

Sir Keir may or may not prove to be a successful Labour leader, in with a chance come 2024, when the next election is held. But whether he is or he isn’t, now is not the time to judge. Extraordinary times call for extraordinary politics and, right now, if the best the official opposition can do is tread water, politically, and be seen to be broadly supportive of the efforts the Government is making to get Britain back on track, they should accept that graciously.

The time to judge Sir Keir and his team will come, just as it did for Clement Attlee, who spent the Second World War backing Conservative Winston Churchill and emerged the winner of the peace.