Keir Starmer is having an odd half-term. First, his big ‘GPC’ files story was a bit of a flop. And now, his latest ‘Labour has changed’ announcement – including confirmation that Jeremy Corbyn will not stand for his party at the next election – has been over-shadowed. But might it be for the best?
Scotland’s first minister Nicola Sturgeon has announced her resignation, saying she knew in her “head and in her heart” it was the right time to stand down. She will remain in place until a successor is chosen. Here are the runners and riders to replace her.
Sturgeon’s announcement is a surprise for two reasons. First, it didn’t leak until moments before she stood behind the lectern. And second, despite a lot of heat, the SNP remains on course to win a fourth landslide election at the UK parliament level. Meanwhile, her personal ratings, though on the decline, remain reasonably healthy for someone who has led her party and country for nearly a decade.
So despite the stolen news cycle, should Labour be celebrating today’s news? Perhaps, if a new SNP leader makes space for Starmer and Anas Sarwar to pick up a few extra seats. There is a reason why Sturgeon ascended to the top job and kept it for so long. She was good at it. A consummate communicator, she perfected the art of being in government in Edinburgh while milking the grievance politics of opposition in Westminster.
That is not to say she leaves a tremendous legacy. From the state of the Scottish NHS to educational attainment and drug deaths, Scotland has its fair share of public policy failures. But the SNP will miss Sturgeon. Like Boris Johnson and Brexit, she had an ability to promise all the sunlit uplands of constitutional change without accepting any of the fiscal, monetary or political downsides.
For some instant (read: Scottish) reaction, do check out journalist Euan McColm, who says that Sturgeon’s mistakes – while sometimes hidden to an English audience – have finally caught up with her.
Today is also the tenth anniversary of Ella Adoo-Kissi-Debrah’s death. As many Londoners are now aware thanks to the tireless campaigning of her mother, Rosamund, Ella was nine years old when she died following a severe asthma attack. She lived near the South Circular Road in Lewisham and in the three years prior had been to hospital almost 30 times and suffered multiple seizures.
In December 2020, Ella became the first person in the UK to have air pollution listed as a cause of death. In the years since her death, some progress made – but nowhere near enough. Today we report that 16 of the worst pollution hotspots in England are in London.
It remains my firm belief that once we rid the capital of air that is – no exaggeration – killing us, future generations of Londoners won’t so much thank us as look back in horror at what it was like to live here in the olden days.
Elsewhere in the paper, what was that secret Brexit summit – an innocent case of cross-party co-operation or something more sinister? Either way, a whiff of Bregret is in the air, suggests Anne McElvoy.
In the comment pages, Martha Gill acknowledges that Shamima Begum was not likeable, but likeability is not the basis for international law. Business Editor Jonathan Prynn reckons there are good reasons to think the worst of the inflation firestorm may well be over. And Robbie Smith hopes that the director who smeared a critic in dog poo is learning that revenge sometimes backfires.
And finally, JLo, Affleck and the new PDA: Public Display of Aggression. Emma Firth explores our collective obsession with couples bickering in public.
