What Rishi Sunak and his opposite number, Labour’s Keir Starmer, will be selling over the next six weeks is the promise of sobriety and stability.
British politics is the gift that just keeps on giving. First came the unforgettable image on Wednesday of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak getting soaked by rain on the steps of Downing Street as heBut even on day one of the election campaign, that wasn’t the end of it. Still wearing the same damp trousers, Sunak then whipped over to join his cabinet, party activists and a pool of journalists at the ExCel exhibition centre for the Conservative Party’s campaign launch.
This election is supposed to bring an end to all that. What Sunak and his opposite number, Labour’s Keir Starmer, will be selling over the next six weeks is the promise of sobriety and stability. The pitch to voters: “Pick me, I’m duller, more earnest and more serious than he is!” Most opinion polls suggest a landslide is in the offing. The Conservatives could be pushed back to the parlous position of 1997, or even worse. Cabinet ministers will lose their once-impregnable blue-ribbon seats. Already, more than 70 Tory MPs have said they won’t be standing again.In the latest Deltapoll, Labour’s share of the vote is 45 per cent to the Conservatives’ 23 per cent. It is an unbridgeable chasm.
In either of those scenarios, Labour is still leading by at least 15 points. That’s enough for Starmer to get a House of Commons majority. Bookmaker William Hill is offering 1/8 on a Labour majority , and 5/1 on a hung parliament . In the latter scenario, you’ll get 6/1 for a punt on a Labour minority government, and 16/1 on a Conservative one.
In response, Starmer is reaching for an Australian playbook too: it’s the Anthony Albanese one from 2022. The way to neuter the Crosby-Levido attack is to say and do nothing that might cause the public to worry that they can’t trust you. This means sticking close to the other guy on future policy, while selling your virtue as being that you don’t have his tarnished track record.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Labour leader Keir Starmer could end up as left-leaning islands in what looks like an increasingly right-leaning Western world.Britain’s fiscal strength, political coherence and diplomatic confidence matter to Australia. A change of government will bring change in all these areas, and more.
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