Starmer Spooks Tory Cheerleaders

Here on Zelo Street, there has not always been total enthusiasm for Keir Starmer’s leadership of the Labour Party. But it would be churlish not to admit that his speech to Conference yesterday was highly effective, and it came at the right time for him, his party, and more importantly a country that has been ground down by twelve years of Tory failure and ineptitude.

While Sterling sinks, the markets take flight, those much-cited house prices cease to rise, inflation rages, energy prices are out of control, and realisation slowly sinks in that Brexit was a confidence trick on the British people, the Government is in paralysis, caught like a rabbit in the advancing headlights, with Liz Truss, somehow elevated to Prime Minister, unable or unwilling to reverse the catastrophic mini budget given by Kwasi Kwarteng last week.

Starmer, so long faced with the question “What is Labour for”, is now, at long last, putting some answers forward. As for the Tories, “The government has lost control of the British economy - and for what? They've crashed the pound - and for what? Higher interest rates. Higher inflation. Higher borrowing. And for what? Not for you. Not for working people. For tax cuts for the richest 1% in our society. Don't forget. Don't forgive”. He even laid claim to a Tory staple.

Labour would be the party of “sound money”. After the towering ineptitude of Kwarteng and Ms Truss, it is true that this would be less difficult than at any time in the past. The party would, in Government, work to a target of carbon-free energy by 2030 - and thereby achieve energy security. He would oversee stabilising of the economy, and the NHS “back in good health”.

This had one effect on the Tories, their cheerleaders and those advising them: all became spooked in very short order. Today’s front pages from the Murdoch press - both Times and Sun - as well as the Mail and Express, did not so much as give Starmer’s speech a mention. Didn’t happen. As for the flat earthers at the IEA, whose wise counsel crashed the economy, well.

A state-owned green energy company to lead to move to carbon free electricity? “Great British Energy...will be a disaster, with Ministers picking winners, and civil servants making an expensive mess of deployment”. Not half as expensive a mess as Kwarteng, aided and abetted by, er, the IEA.

Daniel Hannan: an intervention of towering stupidity

At Gammon Broadcasting™ News (“Bacon’s News Channel”), the deeply unpleasant Dan Wootton, against a backdrop claiming “Hard Left Labour Would Destroy UK”, declared “Labour is anything but the centre ground, [and] a government led by Starmer would run the UK into the ground”.

His feeble whining was echoed by Darren Grimes: The Crafty One told anyone not yet asleep “Sir Keir Starmer tells us to ‘don’t forgive, don’t forget’. Don’t worry, millions won’t - that’s why they won’t vote Labour”. Meanwhile, the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog, like their press masters, said as little as possible. Didn’t really happen.

But the pièce de résistance had to go to Dan, Dan The Oratory Man, whose on-off relationship with reality was definitely on the off side in a piece for Conservative Home: “No, the pound isn’t crashing over a trifling batch of tax cuts. It’s because the markets are terrified of [Keir Starmer]”. It’s someone else’s fault! The selling is all down to more of those Bitter Remoaners™!

And that shows not only that the tribalist right is on a defensive hair trigger, but also why the appeal of a Starmer Government - boring, maybe, but reassuringly competent, and outside the influence of the Tufton Street mafia - spooks the Tories so easily. Especially as last week’s tax cuts and extra borrowing may have to be reversed in order to placate the markets.

Which, in turn, could back Ms Truss and her Chancellor into a corner, with the letters of no confidence raining down on them. As Ian Dunt put it, “There's a genuine chance Truss doesn't make it to Christmas”. She’s delusional enough to think the Tories could still win a snap General Election, I reckon.

So Starmer and his pals have to hope that al-Jazeera’s Labour Files trilogy doesn’t gain too much traction. Because he is now very close to Number 10.

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