The Labour party under Keir Starmer is clearly a government in waiting. The Labour leader and his shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, were generally considered to be representing the UK last week at the resumed, post-epidemic annual meeting in Davos of the World Economic Forum. Our prime minister, the hapless Rishi Sunak, may be desperate for overseas investors to back Brexit Britain, but did not even bother to beat the drum by going to Davos himself.
Sunak must know that the game is already up. He seeks consensus, but is tortured by the detritus of what has become the Conservative and Brexit party, who are out to get him. Now, in a sane world, there would be a general election this year; the Augean stables would be cleared and this reprehensible, indeed disgusting, government would be thrown out. But unless one of Harold Macmillan’s “events” precipitates an unexpected election, we are fated to wait another year.
