Oh what a mess we made, as the late Amy Winehouse once put it of a dysfunctional relationship. It’s a torch song that might be on Downing Street playlists as the Government heads into what insiders call “everything month” — the period intended to be the zenith of the political year, launched this week with a major defence review, then hurtling to the big sorting hat of the spending review next Wednesday — and nervous hopes that the promise of a trade agreement with the US will turn from promise to reality, despite another round of delay in finalising implementation from an unreliable White House.
Spending tussles already unleashed a bloodbath between a “quad” of influential Cabinet figures and a chancellor tied into an over-tight fiscal corset, with a flurry of costs coming down the line and tensions with her No 10 neighbour and boss. The Starmer-Reeves duo faced a tsunami of rebellions over benefit cuts, anxiety over the lack of a clear upward growth trend and a run of odd “moments” which have either dissolved into messy communications — or led to questions about Labour’s grip on the machinery of power.
