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Who should get the vaccine first? Those most likely to die from Covid, you would have thought. Luckily the Corbynite twenty-something Zarah Sultana was on hand to question such ill thought out assumptions.  During a science and technology select committee hearing earlier this morning, the Coventry South MP quizzed the vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi over the government’s decision to prioritise the old and infirm. Instead, the government, according to the socialist MP, should consider doing the ‘humane’ thing by prioritising ‘disenfranchised’ prisoners as it would be ‘good for public health’.  Zahawi politely suggested that it was perhaps best to stick to the current plan, vaccinating those most at risk of, you know, dying… 

Inevitably, Keir Starmer’s main intervention today has been on Covid, with the Labour leader calling for more restrictions within the next 24 hours. But he made this demand as part of his first major policy speech as leader – and there was more in it than just Covid curbs. Starmer has decided he wants to spend the next few months talking about several topics the Labour party has veered away from over the past decade or so. Chief among them is the economy, with the leader and shadow chancellor keen to use the time they have now before the next election to start making it normal for Labour to bring

Every party keeps on file a list of rash things politicians in other parties have said that can be used against them at a later date. Way back when I was directing Ukip’s 2014 European parliamentary campaign, I built up a ‘helpful contributions’ folder containing print-outs of gaffes and embarrassing admissions made by pro-EU MPs and MEPs. Conservative Campaign Headquarters probably has at its disposal a far more sophisticated and comprehensive digital system for logging the own-goals of its adversaries. But one thing is certain, someone will imminently be inputting an entry marked something like ‘Duffield, R. – Labour’s plan to re-join the EU’. Because Rosie Duffield, the Labour MP

There is a thought in some Westminster circles that Keir Starmer has lost the next general election already. Whether it be because of Brexit or Brexit and a bunch of other stuff, including leftover Corbyn baggage, Starmer is doomed as he stands. I believe this view is naïve and the smarter Tories I know don’t buy it for a second. Labour could still win the next election, particularly if the Conservatives get complacent. Yet if they do end up losing their fifth general election in a row, I already know why that will be. There was a moment in the 2015 Labour leadership contest that stands out for me, as

It shouldn’t have been a difficult task to hold the government to account today on schools and lockdown, as the Prime Minister currently weighs up shuttering the school gates till Covid cases decline. Labour leader Keir Starmer though seems to have managed to develop an even more confused policy today. This morning, Labour suggested that schools should remain open even if the country went into lockdown. This was followed by a hasty U-Turn this afternoon, with the party then calling for schools to be closed. After such a big change, Mr S had presumed that Labour would at least have a basic grasp of their new policy. Unfortunately though, in

On New Year’s Eve at 11 p.m., the United Kingdom departed both the single market and the customs union, making the end to the country’s former membership of the EU complete. It was a moment to celebrate for Brexiteers; the commemoration of sadness for some Remainers. Or should I say ‘Rejoiners’ — there is no remaining now, Great Britain having departed the European Union. Many Rejoiners have set out their stalls already. ‘When they tell you to “move on” DO move on — to the long, strong, campaign to rejoin,’ tweeted Simon Schama, the historian and noted fan of the UK’s membership of the EU, ‘However hard the road, however

Part of the soap opera appeal of politics comes from the idea that it is a competitive sport based on fine margins – with a result that will be determined by the relative performances of the teams and their captains. Under the British first-past-the-post system two major parties slug it out in an epic tussle across hundreds of seats and then one of them wins. Sometimes things are so closely fought that neither party has an outright majority, in which case one or more of the minor parties gets to choose which should be propped up. From this point of view, every policy shift or zinger soundbite thrown by Boris

Keir Starmer has announced he is whipping his Labour MPs to vote for Boris’s Brexit deal in the House of Commons today. There are two likely reasons behind this decision: firstly, to make himself seem like a Labour leader who is a grown up, after Corbyn’s teenaged politics; secondly, to demonstrate that Labour accepts Brexit in order that it may win back Leave voters in red wall seats at the next general election. But there is a big problem with this calculation. While all of Starmer’s Brexit options are difficult ones, he may be about to enact the worst of the lot. A no-deal situation would have allowed Keir Starmer

Keir Starmer has been leader of the Labour party for just eight months. But that hasn’t stopped analysts defining what it is that ‘Starmerism’ represents. To some, it is an empty space where ideas should be: technocratic, electorally-driven but otherwise strategically rudderless. Others – most obviously implacable Corbynites – even detect elements of free-market individualism. So what does Starmer really stand for? Commentators seem addicted to attaching the suffix ‘-ism’ to leading politicians’ names to capture what they are ultimately all about. Too often however this ‘-ism’ gives leaders’ actions a fake coherence. Margaret Thatcher certainly had a clear vision of where she wanted to go when elected Conservative leader

The verdict of the Twitter jury is in, articulated in a single, now viral tweet by broadcaster Matthew Stadlen:  ‘Keir Starmer would have been – and would be – a far better Prime Minister than Boris Johnson during this pandemic.’ It is a theme that Starmer has naturally been keen to develop, leading him to make excoriating criticisms of Boris Johnson in a press conference at the weekend. The Starmer thesis is that Johnson is so anxious to be liked that he ducks out of taking tough decisions until it is too late. The Labour leader cites examples that include the lateness of the original lockdown, an allegedly late-in-the-day decision

Plenty of Labour figures who voted Remain are now urging the government to complete a trade agreement with the European Union before the end of the transition period. ‘There isn’t a choice between a fantasy deal and no deal,’ says Liam Byrne. ‘It’s this deal versus no deal, and we will not have a manufacturing industry left unless there is a deal.’ Although there is still a battle within the shadow cabinet on what to do should a UK-EU trade agreement come to parliament, the consensus seems to be that Keir Starmer would whip the party to vote for Johnson’s deal. This marks a big shift in Labour’s Brexit strategy

Sir Keir Starmer will start setting out his vision for the Labour party in the new year, Coffee House understands. The Labour leader will ‘move onto another level’, according to party sources, talking about what life under a Starmer government might look like, and encouraging his frontbenchers to make policy announcements. Up to this point, Starmer has had a strangely slow start as leader because he has been largely in reactive mode, responding to the government’s own response to the pandemic. This has made it easier for him to avoid awkward confrontations in his party over policy, with the stand-off over anti-Semitism being the only real ruction. He has focused largely

It now seems more likely than ever that the UK will leave with no deal at the end of the year. But let’s imagine for a moment that I’m wrong and the UK and the EU manage to overcome their substantial differences. It would then have to be voted on in Parliament – and Labour should vote it down. Why? Because the deal put before the Commons would not be between Brexit and Remain. That ship has long since sailed. It would instead be between the thin deal Boris Johnson will have agreed with the EU and the choice of leaving with no deal whatsoever. Whichever way Parliament votes, we leave the transitional

Few will be surprised that Unite has reportedly given no money to the Labour party since Keir Starmer took over as leader. Unite boss Len McCluskey and those around him were hardly thrilled at Starmer’s victory in the leadership contest. Why? Because they knew that it represented the end of the far left’s control over Labour. But if McCluskey is seeking to undermine Labour’s new leader, this will end badly and ultimately benefit only one person: Boris Johnson. It will also make the prospect of another thumping Tory win at the next election more likely. And, what’s worse for McCluskey, is that it could speed up the death of unions like

A vote will be held in the House of Commons today, which will decide the freedoms Britons will have from this week, possibly until spring. Yet the official opposition is planning to abstain. There have also been rumours that if Boris Johnson does somehow get a Brexit deal with the EU this week, Labour will abstain on that vote as well. Two of the biggest Commons votes of our era – one built around the greatest health crisis of our times and what that means for individual freedoms in this country, the other about our future trade relationship with our immediate neighbours – and Labour appear to have decided not

Just what is the essential difference between our two main political parties? Certainly not their respective attitudes towards fiscal prudence; the thing which used to provide clear blue water between the two. Now we have two parties which don’t give a damn about public debt, who think that they can spend willy-nilly and that something, somehow will come round and save them in the end.  No, the message of today’s spending review is that the Conservatives and Labour are entrenching their respective positions as the representatives of two tribes: private sector workers and public sector ones. We all know there’s bad news on the horizon in the shape of tax

After a brief spell in the Labour hinterland after losing her Durham seat in 2019, the former MP and Corbynite Laura Pidcock returned to frontline politics this year, after being elected to the party’s National Executive Committee (NEC). Unfortunately though it didn’t take long for the former Durham MP to once again indulge in the Labour left’s favourite pastime: factional infighting. At an NEC ‘away day’ today, Pidcock and 12 of her colleagues decided to stage a digital walkout of the Zoom meeting, after the committee elected Margaret Beckett to be chair of the committee. The group appeared to be particularly aggrieved that Beckett had described herself as a ‘moron’

Sir Keir Starmer was having such a good year. He broke cover early on to attack the government’s handling of Covid-19 and did so by speaking explicitly to traditional Tory voters. He repeatedly bested Boris Johnson at Prime Minister’s Questions and gave a good first conference speech in the job. He brought his party’s poll numbers to within a hairsbreadth of the Conservatives, just as Number 10 descended into the dullest soap opera this side of The Archers. Even that cringe photo of him and Angela Rayner taking a knee in the Shadow Cabinet room — like your parents after listening to Stormzy for the first time — can be

Jeremy Corbyn’s fan club has reacted with predictable outrage to the decision not to hand him back the party whip. Starmer’s refusal to do so was not ‘the right thing to do,’ said Labour MP Clive Lewis. ‘At a time of national crisis, division in the Labour party serves nobody but the Tory Government,’ said Richard Burgon. But Mr S wonders whether Corbyn will really be that bothered by the decision? During Labour’s last stint in power, Corbyn voted against the whip 428 times. And if you go further back, to when Corbyn first became an MP in 1983, he has voted against the whip 617 times during his time in Parliament. Under Tony Blair, perhaps

At the end of October Jeremy Corbyn was suspended from the party he loved and led, after suggesting that concerns about Labour’s anti-Semitism problem during his tenure had been ‘dramatically overstated’ for political reasons. At the time of his suspension, the former Labour leader seemed to strike a defiant tone. In a broadcast interview, Corbyn suggested that the number of Labour’s anti-Semitism complaints had been ‘exaggerated’ and that he was ‘not part of the problem’. Mr S wonders though if Corbyn might be worried about being re-admitted to the party. Today, the former Labour leader released a statement on Facebook which he had given to the party on the day of

‘A split party will be doomed to defeat,’ says Len McCluskey, with a hint of threat. The left of Labour are sabre rattling behind the scenes and starting to go public; talk of them actually leaving the party is becoming louder. They are annoyed at Jeremy Corbyn’s ongoing suspension more than anything, but there are other gripes. They are irritated at Keir Starmer avoiding the culture wars as much as he can instead of taking their side without question. They are angered by the fact that Biden’s victory has robbed them of the ‘centrists can’t win’ narrative they were hoping to promote. But if the Labour party does split as

Keir Starmer has made life difficult for Boris Johnson this week with his demand for a circuit-breaker lockdown. But the Labour leader’s colleague Andy Burnham is currently presenting a far greater threat to the Prime Minister. On Thursday, the Mayor of Greater Manchester gave a furious speech in which he accused the government of being ‘willing to sacrifice jobs here to save them elsewhere’ while treating his area like ‘canaries in the coalmine for an experimental regional lockdown strategy’. The government, he argued, was treating the North with ‘contempt’ by telling regional leaders there wasn’t enough money to protect jobs during the new restrictions while spending large sums on consultants

Labour is gearing up for its first big Commons clash since returning from recess this afternoon, with shadow education secretary Kate Green taking on Gavin Williamson after his statement on the opening of schools and colleges. On the surface, the party has had its easiest summer in a long while, with no real factional battles or rows about its leader. Keir Starmer has bedded in quietly, and some Labour MPs have been able to switch off from thinking about the party for the first time in years. MPs who thought their party might have been over a year ago are now in an upbeat mood. ‘This is the first summer

John McDonnell, Corbyn’s right hand man for four and a half years, was full of praise when asked about the official opposition’s handling of the Covid crisis. ‘Keir’s got this exactly right’ the ex-shadow chancellor told John Pienaar. But many of Corbyn’s loyal supporters didn’t agree; sparking an internal Labour argument between the party’s warring sides. It is tempting to point to the scrap and claim that it is yet more evidence of the difficulties Starmer faces to get Labour winning again, as the party’s internal battles never seem to end and in fact, are now being fought out between ever smaller factions. But another, more positive way for Starmer

The myth that is developing goes like this: Labour can’t win enough seats to form a majority government at the next election, however much the Tories may tank. They will need the SNP and almost certainly the Liberal Democrats to rule. Therefore, Labour needs to stand down in English seats where the Lib Dems have a clear shot at the Conservative party. There are several problems with this myth, but one that isn’t being talked about: the price the Lib Dems would extract for bringing a Labour minority to power would be steep, and not worth it from a Labour perspective. If Labour leader Keir Starmer is wise, this must inform

Ever since Keir Starmer became Labour leader, there have been calls for him to publicly embrace Brexit to win back seats in the ‘Red Wall’. Starmer has stayed quiet on Europe since his victory, to the consternation of many Remainers who wanted him to push the importance of extending the transition period, before that opportunity passed. This silence has been wise on Starmer’s part – and he should continue to stay silent on the European question for the time being. The calls for Starmer to announce that he’s converted to Brexit misunderstand several things, including: the nature of the electoral coalition Starmer needs to build, why Red Wall seats fell

It’s happening again. Despite having lost four general elections in a row, supporters of the Labour party have already convinced themselves that Boris Johnson is doomed and they are on course for victory next time. Their reasoning was expertly set out by Andrew Rawnsley, still the doyen of left-of-centre commentators, in his Observer column on Sunday: Jeremy Corbyn was a gift to the Tories, but now Labour has the much more ‘capable and substantial’ Keir Starmer at the helm and the government doesn’t know how to deal with him; Boris Johnson’s basic lack of competence has been shown up by coronavirus; people are warming to the technocratic Starmer and while

Usually, MPs think debate is quite an important part of their job description – after all, the entire purpose of the House of Commons is to pit the opposition against the government of the day, to scrutinise their decisions, and in doing so make better policy.  That appears to have passed the Labour MP and Corbyn ally Nadia Whittome by though. Instead, debating some issues is bad, according to the Member of Parliament. Tweeting to promote a piece on trans rights in the Independent today, the new Labour MP said that debate acts as ‘a foot in the door for doubt and hatred’. Mr S understands that Labour has a zero-tolerance policy

Will Labour ever stop pushing for punitive taxation? Not content with gifting the Conservatives an 80 seat majority in December, the supposedly more moderate Labour party under Keir Starmer is already dreaming up ways it can extract large sums from our pockets. Shadow Chancellor Anneliese Dodds floated a ‘wealth tax’ at the weekend, so that the burden of paying for the Covid 19 crisis might fall upon the ‘very best off people’. Except it won’t be the very best-off people who get whacked by a wealth tax, as she should surely know. The highly mobile global super rich wouldn’t hang around for five minutes after a Labour government announced a

It has become a truism that there are not enough liberal voters to get Labour a majority at the next general election. That Labour need to recapture some of the socially conservative vote to win. That they need the ‘red wall’ seats back to give them even the slimmest chance of victory. But for a period last year, however brief, the Lib Dems were as high as 24 per cent in the national polls. If Starmer can tap into this potential electorate I believe he can win, and Labour can become the biggest party in England and Wales – which would probably allow the party to govern. It looks like