There’s a party game I’ve never played called F…, Marry, Kill. Before Labour conference, Keir Starmer will have been consulting with his closest advisers on how to play his own version of the game regarding Nigel Farage and Reform UK. This game is called “Accommodate, Confront, Ignore”.
“Ignore” had some attractions. Last week, Sir John Curtice, that monument to psephology, advised the prime minister that to talk a lot about immigration or asylum (and, inevitably, also about Reform) was tantamount to choosing to fight battles on the enemy’s ground. Far better to concentrate on the government’s main tasks and many voters’ main preoccupations: the economy, the cost of living and the state of public services.
