To Cap It All?

By 10 pm, Tony Blair was less newsworthy than the weather. As he should be. But even 13 hours earlier, the Today programme had ended with Dan Tomlinson, who was only 15 when Blair left office, pointing out that Labour had never won his seat under Blair. That is the line from the Starmer camp: “Is that Tony Blair still alive?”

The challenges to Keir Starmer’s Premiership have moved Rachel Reeves to seek to protect her position by entreating her colleagues to buy British when procuring suppliers for artificial intelligence, energy infrastructure, shipbuilding and steel. Her letter is co-signed by Chris Ward, Parliamentary Secretary for the Cabinet Office, who was made Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Prime Minister immediately upon becoming an MP, having previously been Starmer’s Deputy Chief of Staff. Holding this regime’s feet to the fire is having an effect.

Reeves has also announced reduced tariffs on 125 foodstuffs. The everyday essential character of many of them is easy to mock even if the move itself is welcome, but the mass importation of the rest is, when seen written down, far more shocking than one might still have expected. We import enough bread to make this measure worthwhile? Crisps? Baked beans? Tomato ketchup? Toffees and caramels? Chocolate bars? Not cocoa, which is also on the list. Finished bars.

To varying extents, all 402 Labour MPs know what, and therefore who, has caused that and so many other problems. Therefore, not a single one of them has come out in support of Blair’s rambling collection of clichés, mixed metaphors, statements of the obvious, and clunking references to things like relegation from the Premier League. I cannot call it an essay, lest my teachers’ ghosts torment me in the night. On 15 December, it will be 50 years of what came to be called Thatcherism. It began under a Labour Government. That was why we used to talk about 40 years of Thatcherism in the early Corbyn years, a decade ago.

We had Ofgem then, too. It was created by Blair. This very day, it has increased the energy price cap by 13 per cent. How is there a cap at all if they keep putting it up? Even the standing charges on gas and electricity are 50 times the cost of maintaining the networks, and although they are supposed to protect the suppliers from going bankrupt, not only have they repeatedly failed to do so, but they have never come down when those suppliers have been eye-wateringly profitable. As ever, someone is getting paid. And as ever, it is not us.