Things Can Only Get 8

Sometimes politics looks as if it is about to get a great reset and doesn't. 1945 was a reset. As was 1979. 1997 looks as if it was, given the landslide, but there was no momentous change of tack. I will say, until I'm blue in the face, that Labour Governments always prioritise the poor but do not get elected if they say that is what they are going to do. The 1997 Labour landslide came about not because of policy so much as a weariness with a calamitous, sleaze-ridden government that had run out of ideas. We're due a reset.

With the Tories having moved to the right since Brexit (damn me, I mentioned it) the Labour Party are campaigning in the centre. You will have noted that this has led to the purging of some of the lefter left. And also that a number of Tories are able to say 'This is my party now'.

In 2010 David Cameron tried to sell the idea that his branch of Conservatism was a big ship and we should all serve each other in a big society. It didn't catch on because a time of austerity is not when people feel most charitable. Would it have worked given longer? We'll never know because of Brexit (oops I did it again) which gave us two societies massively divided and we're only just recovering.

The accusation that Labour are short of policy commitment and costings will continue to be partly true until the manifesto. But a vision of recruiting a broad spectrum of the centre and centre-left to govern the country for 5-15 years (goodness me we might do vision and planning) might be unfolding.

Starmer isn't charismatic. But he has a track record of fixing things, steadily and in the right order. I'm optimistic for the first time since election night 2010.