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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
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Polly Toynbee

Labour’s top brass know the election battle will be brutal, but they can hardly believe their luck

Illustration: Nate Kitch/The Guardian
Illustration: Nate Kitch/The Guardian Illustration: OPINION ILLUSTRATION Nate Kitch on Labour's first day of election campaigning/The Guardian

Here is the one and only great service Rishi Sunak could perform for his country. Nothing so became him as the leaving of office, despite the deluge. The prospect of another six months of zombie government, everyone waiting and waiting for Labour, was an almost unendurable state of stasis. Everything he proposed only added to the smell of death and desperation in the air.

Labour’s team could scarcely believe their luck, pinching themselves as they watched their opponent dash for the precipice. They were so ready that they could press send on a video within minutes. The contrast between their leader so draped in flags and the wretchedly bedraggled prime minister was more than any campaign could dream of. Yet these six weeks will feel eternally long, a never-ending prime minister’s questions day after day until virtually every voter has been beaten into submission, mumbling the one-word slogans in their sleep: “change”, “stability”.

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