There is a formula to winning general elections. If your leader outperforms his or her principal rival and your party leads on the economy, you are going to win. There is no example, since records began, of a party which led on those two measures and then went on to lose the election. But let’s not forget that politics is, as Ronald Reagan once said, simple, even if it is hard to do.
Sir Keir Starmer is holding up his end on the first element. In the latest YouGov tracker, 39 per cent of those asked thought Starmer was doing a good job and 43 per cent thought he was performing badly. A deficit of four points is hardly spectacular but you only have to beat the opponent in front of you and Rishi Sunak has a performance deficit of 17 (34 per cent say “good” and 51 per cent say “bad”).
