Labour

There are two popular reactions to the Hartlepool by-election, which one you favour depending largely on your political tribe. The first holds that the white working class has reacted against a woke, metropolitan Labour party and its knee-taking leader, Keir Starmer. The second holds that the town’s racist and xenophobic population are still fearful that their beloved Brexit might yet be undone, and were desperate to vote against a Labour candidate who had backed Remain. Both of these narratives in fact boil down to pretty much the same thing: that the people of Hartlepool are a sad and angry bunch who tend to vote against things rather than vote for

Campaigning in the Hartlepool by-election is reaching its feverish final hours as the Labour party tries to hold onto the seat. There has been sufficient talk of the party losing the constituency for such a result not to come as a shock if it does happen. Indeed, many in the party are already talking as though they have lost, openly discussing what might happen next. It is clear that while the Left of the party will use this as evidence that Starmer’s plan to rescue the party isn’t cutting through, there won’t – or can’t – be a serious challenge to his leadership from this faction. What we are more

We have two years of elections on Thursday. But in England, the Hartlepool by-election is fast becoming the defining contest. If the Tories take the seat, which has always been Labour’s, it will show that Keir Starmer hasn’t stopped the bleeding for Labour in the red wall. It will indicate that the realignment of English politics is continuing even without Brexit and Corbyn. A Tory win would suggest that the 2019 general election was not a freak result or a unique product of voters’ desire to get Brexit done combined with their concerns about Corbyn, but rather part of a substantial shift in the electoral geography of England. Hartlepool turning blue

One of the reasons the row isn’t fading about Tory sleaze allegations and the Prime Minister’s conduct is that there are so many different facets to it. Each row has its own faction within the Conservative party and indeed within No. 10, and so far there is scant evidence that any of these factions are backing down. Labour isn’t likely to benefit from this story politically just yet While the stories are now front-page news, it is also the case that allegations about special treatment for friends and donors have been bubbling away for a year now. This is causing some satisfaction to some of those around Labour leader Sir

In the midst of the David Cameron-Greensill lobbying scandal — a gift to the Labour party if ever there was one — Keir Starmer’s frontbench have managed to overshoot the mark. Talking up what she clearly hoped will be another storm for the government to weather, shadow business minister Lucy Powell had some strong words: It stinks, really, that a billionaire businessman can text the Prime Minister and get an immediate response and apparently an immediate change in policy. It seems like the country only works for people who are rich enough or influential enough and, frankly, donors to the Tory party, who have the personal mobile number of the

Keir Starmer is only a year into his job as Labour leader, but could his time in charge soon come to an end? Starmer is under increasing pressure following his failure to revitalise Labour. A bad set of results on 6 May could mean the final nail in the coffin. If Starmer is ousted – and that remains a big if, given the lack of viable contenders for the job – Corbyn’s critics within the Labour party will quickly find themselves in a difficult position. With no heir apparent on the Labour right, Starmer’s departure could easily mean the left taking control of Labour all over again. Yvette Cooper has

Can things get any worse for Keir Starmer? Yes appears to be the answer, if the latest YouGov poll is anything to go on. While the Tories have surged ahead to 43 per cent, support for Labour has tumbled down to 29 per cent. It’s important not to blow a single poll out of proportion, but nonetheless these numbers make for grim reading for the Labour leader. That 14 per cent lead for the Conservatives is the largest since mid-May 2020, when the recently elected Starmer was still digging his party out of the polling abyss of the Corbyn period. A year on – and coming weeks before a crucial

It’s arguably been a good week for Labour, as the Tory party becomes more and more implicated in the Greensill lobbying scandal, which saw the former PM David Cameron ringing around ministers last year to secure emergency cash for the flailing financial firm. Labour leader Keir Starmer certainly seemed to enjoy the ongoing revelations about Greensill at PMQs this week, when he said Boris Johnson was overseeing the ‘return of Tory sleaze’. Wiser heads wondered though if the Labour Party should be championing a crackdown on outside organisations influencing politics, considering its own close links to the unions… Lo and behold, that appeared to play out last night when Labour’s

‘Keir today, gone tomorrow.’ The whisper before Easter was that Labour’s troubled leader might not survive until the next election but the spectre of Tory sleaze – which felled John Major’s government – has come to the rescue. Sir Keir started PMQs by alluding to David Cameron’s freelance activities for Greensill Capital. ‘Are the current lobbying rules fit for purpose?’ he asked. Boris tried the ‘nothing to see here’ approach. He wants to smother the controversy by appointing a legal sleuth with a spectacularly dull name, Nigel Boardman, whose findings will be delivered in June. So for the next two months the PM can happily refer every question to ‘the

Labour’s recovery under Keir Starmer has, for the moment, stalled. Most surveys suggest voters are less inclined than they once were to see him as ‘prime ministerial’ and his party as ready for government. It is too early to say if this is due to the pandemic looking like it is finally under Conservative ministers’ control or to inherent problems with Starmer’s own pitch to the public. But it confirms that after Labour’s appalling 2019 general election result, if Starmer ever ends up in Number 10 it’ll be close to an electoral miracle. During his first year as leader Starmer has tried to find ways of winning back voters who

Momentum, the Labour campaign group dedicated to keeping Corbynism alive, this week demanded that Keir Starmer commit to introducing a proportional voting system should he win election, replacing the current first past the post model for electing MPs. ‘A popular consensus is building across the labour movement for a change to our first past the post electoral system, which has consistently delivered Tory majorities on a minority of the vote and hands disproportionate power to swing voters in marginal constituencies,’ said Gaya Sriskanthan, Momentum’s co-chair. ‘Momentum will join the charge for PR, as part of a broader commitment to deep democratic change and alongside our strategy of building popular support

Political parties like to think of themselves as being a ‘broad church’ when tackled about conflicting views among members. It makes it all the more ironic then that it was a visit to a church which exposed a challenging split in the Labour party. Keir Starmer’s trip to Jesus House last week resulted in him apologising for associating with people who believe homosexuality to be a sin. The Labour party can ill-afford to keep excluding groups of voters. The difficulty for Starmer (and for many who wish there to be a viable alternative government) is that left-wing politics is increasingly an ‘AND’ movement. This means that to be welcome on the

A lot of politicians go through phases with phrases – falling back on buzzwords and self-coined instant cliches when seeking to set out a thought to interviewers or people that they meet. Often this becomes the subject of private jokes between their spin doctors – with sneaky glances and wry smiles greeting the umpteenth rolling out of the latest favoured soundbite. Keir Starmer has a classic just now, a belter of a mixed metaphor to boot. He cannot wait, he tells people, ‘to take off the mask and open the throttle’. The saying has such an irresistible air of Accidental Partridge that I’d be surprised were it not to have

‘Some Christians believe homosexuality is a sin — get over it.’ I feel like this needs to be made into a poster. Or put on the side of a bus, perhaps. Because, amazingly, there are people out there who seem not to realise that traditionally minded Christians think it is wrong for a man to lie with a man as he would with a woman. Consider the mad controversy over Keir Starmer’s visit to Jesus House in London on Good Friday. Jesus House, in Brent, is part of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, a Pentecostal ‘megachurch’ founded in Nigeria in the 1950s. It has a large following among traditionalist

Hindsight is the easiest weapon to employ in politics — as Keir Starmer of all people should know. When you have witnessed events unfold already, it is simple to point out what politicians should have done. Yet when it comes to post-Corbyn Labour, some mistakes have been made that may just have been avoided — and hindsight is not required to reach that conclusion. The clues were there this time last year. Starmer has moved too slowly and has made the error that many unsuccessful Labour leaders tend to make: assuming that the party requires less mending than is actually the case. Sir Keir has employed the same logic that