Keir Starmer has a secret plan – and it explains why everything has gone wrong for Labour
At first, it seemed obvious. Starmer was playing exactly the same role that Tony Blair did in the 1990s. His job was to crush the Corbynite left and convince voters it was safe to elect a Labour government again.
And that’s what he did, with impressive ruthlessness. Exactly as Blair had done before him. His reward was sweeping to power in July.
Which is when it all went wrong.
Having made Labour electable again – albeit with fewer votes than former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn mustered in 2017 – Starmer has worked flat out to ensure Labour won’t win power for a generation.
In a matter of weeks, Starmer has managed to annoy every single type of voter, whether left, right or somewhere in between.
Labour is now just 1% ahead of the Conservative Party is in the polls, and we know how much the country hates the Tories.
It’s a stunning achievement. He can’t have done this by accident. It must be by design.
Starmer and chancellor Rachel Reeves have enraged pensioners by snatching their Winter Fuel Payment and threatening them with every type of tax.
They’ve frightened the life out of business, stalling the economy in the process.
And they’ve infuriated trade unionists and the Corbynite left, by refusing to axe the two-child benefit cap.
Just to make sure, they’ve besmirched the Labour brand by grabbing every freebie they can.
It’s a chaotic start but I’m beginning to think it’s all part of a brilliantly cunning plan. To discredit the Labour Party and make voters long for the Tories again.
Think about it.
Starmer and Reeves’ serial ineptitude is making former PM Rishi Sunak and chancellor Jeremy Hunt look statesmanlike by comparison.
It feels like Keir Starmer has been planted in the Labour Party to destroy it (Image: Getty)
Labour’s woes are distracting the country from the Conservative Party’s leadership campaign. Given the low quality of the candidates, that can only be good for the Tories.
Also, Starmer is clearly a clever man. He’s had a brilliant career. He can’t really be this useless, can he? Of course not.
My theory is that he’s a Tory sleeper agent, planted in Labour to create maximum havoc.
If I’m right, he’s done a stunning job. A few more weeks of this, and Labour will be trailing the Tory party in the polls.
After five years, the country will be gagging to vote for whoever the Tories install as leader.
And they won’t touch Labour for a generation.
Planting Starmer in the Labour Party was a brilliant move. It’s paying off in spades.
I’m just doubtful about one thing. I can’t quite believe the Tories are competent enough to have come up with such a brilliant masterplan.
But how else can we explain Starmer? His secret mission is to destroy Labour and he’s done it in record time.
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Rachel Reeves will play a £57bn magic trick today – and you’re going to pay for it
We’ll find out more today, when Reeves is set to make a huge decision that will affect every single one of us. If she gets it wrong, she risks triggering another Liz Truss moment and sending interest rates through the roof. If she gets away with it, she’s only saving up problems for later.
So what’s she up to?
During the general election, Reeves pledged to stick to a UK fiscal rule that states the country’s national debt must be falling as a share of the economy within five years.
That sounds like a good rule to me, although it’s proving tricky to comply with in practice. Former Tory chancellor Jeremy Hunt didn’t manage it.
Reeves isn’t going to manage it either. So instead of sticking with the rule she’s going to wish it away and hey presto, she’s got another £57billion at her fingertips.
The money will apparently come out of nowhere but don’t be fooled.
Basically, Reeves is playing with numbers. She knows it, too. But she’s desperate so will almost certainly press the magic button anyway.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves will conjure up £57billion by sleight of hand tomorrow (Image: Getty)
One way that Reeves will distort the rule will be to claim that the nation’s debt is actually smaller than it really is because the government is owed £236billion in unpaid student loans. She’ll then deduct that figure from the total and abracadabra, our debt is smaller.
She may then stick a value on all the things the government owns, such as roads and parks, and use that to shrink the debt even more.
It’s all smoke and mirrors, of course. Worst of all, Reeves knows it.
During the general election, she swore she wouldn’t pull this accounting trick.
Now she’s discovering that all those exciting new taxes she was lining up won’t generate half as much revenue as she hoped.
So she’s in a bit of a jam. As are the rest of us.
The UK is sitting on a massive debt timebomb and if we don’t defuse it, we’re heading for disaster.
We owe a staggering £2.6trillion in total. That’s roughly the size of our entire economic output for a year.
The debt will still be there, even after Reeves has tucked her wand away.
All she’ll have achieved in practice is to add another £57billion to the total. Ultimately, taxpayers will be the ones charged with paying it all back.
But not on her watch.
By the time the bill lands Reeves will have pulled the ultimate magic trick and vanished from government.
She’ll pop up working for some think tank or talking shop, while we’ll be stuck with the real world consequences of her decision to dabble in the dark arts. Her sleight of hand will soon come back to haunt us all.
