Points Ahead?

The Conservatives are two points ahead in the opinion polls, and Labour has lost 40 per cent of the council seats that it has defended since the General Election. Its share of the vote has fallen in 80 per cent of the local by-elections that it has contested, and by 10 points or more in 50 per cent of those contests. Those of us who vote even in local by-elections will vote in a General Election even if no one else did.

The poor little pet lambs of the Labour intake were already refusing to hold constituency surgeries. Never having been told anything except how clever they were, they cannot cope with anything else. And now, they want to ban heckling in the chamber. They really are that insecure.

As well they should be. The Labour Right is already fighting internal Wars of Succession, as if it were at the start of a long period in Opposition. Kim Leadbeater is "disappointed" in Wes Streeting. Yet in 2022, a fundraiser for a future Streeting Leadership campaign was held at the Covent Garden penthouse of Lord Alli. At that time, Streeting's running mate was to have been Leadbeater. Now, though, her Chief of Staff is Lance Price, long-term BBC correspondent, Special Adviser to Tony Blair as Prime Minister, and Director of Communications for the Labour Party during the 2001 General Election campaign. Think on.