MAYDAY, MAYDAY
All political careers end in tears they say and well over 2,000 local politicians are facing the equivalent of a P45 on Thursday 7th May. This will not be a reflection on the Sterling job many of them have done over many years, some many decades, but life just ain't fair.
It's hard for me, as someone who was elected in local and national politics for 38 years, to get my head around how you can engineer such a Tsunami in the making from day zero, but here we are.
For all the lines coming from the victim, Keir Starmer, my favourite is that spewed forth on The Today Programme last week when he declared,
"I was elected on July 4th on a manifesto of change. It was a 5 year term that I won with a landslide victory and I will be judged at the end of that period, at the next election, by whether I have delivered on what I promised". "I've got a mandate", he added.
Everyone will have their favourite list of where Keir went wrong, but most will have the same starting point of 29th July 2024. Rachel Reaves , the Chancellor, informed pensioners that she had discovered a £22 billion black hole down the back of a sofa, and that their winter fuel payments were being scrapped. This bombshell money grab from millions of the poorest people in the UK came literally days after the so called massive mandate on July 4th.
Then 2 1/2 weeks after that wound had been well and truly opened a lorry full of salt arrived in the form of Lord Ali's generosity to Keir, his wife, and a few of his cabinet chums. Fashion rails were raided as freebie donations of clothes were donated by their favourite peer. This was in addition to the Taylor Swift ticket feeding frenzy by Keir, Cabinet and Khan. Those few cabinet members left out of the jolly bonanza must have hurt for months!
The perfect storm was building, and the tool maker's son was about to use a multiple of other politically self harming measures to turn that storm into a tsunami. The Thatcher mantra of not being for u turns was not in the Starmer idiot's guide to running a country. He has owned the u turn like no other Prime Minister. It's his go to solution to policy rejection. He even tried, using local Government reform as a pretence, to stop local elections from taking place in many parts of the country this May, only to u turn on that too.
The issue that has brought the ice beneath his feet to well and truly crack and come to such an ugly head has of course been the saga of the 3 M's- Mandy, Morgan and Matt- as in Mandelson, McSweeney, and Lord Doyle. I wonder now how much Keir regrets not having given Dame Emily Thornberry something when forming his cabinet. How he must have winced at her masterful chairing of the recent Foreign Affairs Select Committee inquisitions.
The real truth that Keir hopes we will all forget is that whilst he has a stonking majority he actually has no mandate if we care to look at the actual popularity of the Labour Party at that election. Labour actually won only 33.7% of those who voted but this translated into 411 seats. If you count in those who did not vote Keir attracted only 1 in 5 of the country to Team Change. In the starkest description of the result Labour landed a big majority but no mandate. Using the first past the post inflated majority as your shield to boast your mandate will prove as useful as a Sinclair C5 to the Red Bull Racing Team during next years Formula One season.
Which takes us back to the latest of 15 Government u turns on the local elections. It is these plain awful results which will finally put the final nail in the coffin marking the end of the Keir premiership. Lord Robert Heyward the renowned psephologist predicts a Labour bloodbath with over 1,800 losses of the 2,557 they are defending which is approaching 2/3 of their seats. Lord Tennyson would have had a field day rewriting his immortal The Charge of the Light Brigade- Half a league, half a league, half a league onward, All in the Valley of death rode the 2557!
It is little wonder therefore that those with ambition and seemingly "prospects", are eyeing up the "crown" or "Keys" somewhat similar as to relatives touring the house of their last remaining parent would eye THAT PRICELESS TREASURE hanging above the fireplace. Only one of the children can inherit and the elbows have been sharpened for 18 months at least!
Like a series of Traitors on steroids the machinations of the leading contenders are barely concealed. Wes Streeting has been on and off the starting blocks so often they must be in danger of wearing away. Angela Rayner seems to have been waiting longer for HMRC to sort out her stamp duty investigation than it takes vodka to freeze, and The King of the North was blocked by the NEC of his party from being able to mop up Andrew Gwynne's old seat of Gorton and Denton. Keir was damned either way so much so that it had the whiff of Sophie's choice about it.
We are now informed that such is the plight and alarm of the Labour Party that they are signalling via distant smoke clouds that Burnham can be a candidate after all whenever any Labour MP with an eye on the Upper House makes the sacrifice.
Keir knows there is more jockeying going on than a typical Epsom Derby and that there are deals being done behind closed WhatsApp groups. Whilst Keir has masterminded another King's Speech with lots of red meat and at least 2 more u turns for May 13th there is also the threat or promise (depending on how you see yourself being affected) of a reshuffle.
Rachel Reeves is adding to the barricades at Downing Street warning anyone who will listen that the economy could suffer if she is bundled out of Downing Street along with Keir. Even 6th form students trying to stitch up unsuspecting Ambassadors will glean that this may be somewhat a weaker defence than anything our Navy has recently been able to muster.
Which neatly brings us to Thursday and Indiana Starmer and the Temple of Gloom. How Sir Keir must look at Sir David Attenborough celebrating his 100th birthday this week and envy such job security. Many people formerly working for Sir Keir have been forced to polish up their LinkedIn profiles recently and Starmer will get very little sympathy from them.
One thing is for certain Sir Keir will not give up easily. His 3 line whip the other day to prevent him being referred to the privileges committee may have worked a treat but lets see his Chief Whip try the same trick with 4 1/2 million people casting their votes for these local elections and elections to the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Senedd. Sir Keir's defence of a five year term is about to be breached despite his majority and mandate. As I said, Life just ain't fair!