A very good few days for the Labour party just got even better. In a normal week, the ousting of Boris Johnson and a summer succession battle between a field of underwhelming Tory leadership candidates would mean Labour’s cup was already full to overflowing. But this has been an extraordinary political week. And it proved to have one more big reveal up its sleeve. It came just before lunchtime on Friday with the news that Durham police will not be issuing fixed penalty notices to Keir Starmer or Angela Rayner.
The immediate political consequence is that it is now beyond doubt that Starmer and Rayner will lead their party into the next election. If Durham police had fined either of them, they would have had to step down. Labour would have been instantly reduced to the same sort of internal turmoil and inward-looking argument that is now gripping the Tories. Now this option is completely off the table. All the talk about Andy Burnham, Lisa Nandy, Rachel Reeves, Wes Streeting and the rest can be put back in a box, perhaps for two years, perhaps for even longer.
