It is sometimes alleged that Keir Starmer has been ‘gifted’ Labour’s 20-point poll lead: by Tory infighting, the partygate scandal, and a cost-of-living crisis beyond the government’s control. He is winning over Conservative voters, goes the argument, by adopting ‘Tory-lite’ economic policies, and the whole project will crumble to dust on contact with economic reality.
In fact, both the poll lead and Labour’s policy offer are the product of a consistent strategy, based on the acceptance of two facts that are unwelcome to the left.
First, that there is no route to power for a progressive party in the UK without winning substantial numbers of working-class voters from a group pollsters describe as the ‘patriotic left’ – aka the Red Wall. Second, that growth strategies based on borrowing, taxing and spending are currently precluded by the mixture of high bond yields and high inflation, triggered by the Covid pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war.
