“If you’re explaining, you’re losing” is one of those Ronald Reagan quotes that sounds clever — so long as you don’t give it too much thought. Sometimes, it really is the Government’s job to break down a complex problem or set out its response to a crisis. That said, if you’re explaining why you can’t tell parents whether or not their child’s school may contain concrete likely to come crashing down on their heads, you probably are losing.
This has been a brutal couple of weeks for the Government, and the metronome of politics dictates it must therefore have been a good one for the Opposition. And it was. This would have been the case even if Sir Keir Starmer had not further stamped his authority over his party with a clinical reshuffle that left his shadow cabinet with more Blairites than many of Sir Tony Blair’s.
