So how has it been for you? The first 100 days? Of the new Labour government? What’s that? You couldn’t care less? OK, so it doesn’t really matter. And I know you’ve been far too tied up in your own problems to bother about Sir Keir Starmer. But humour me. How has he done?
Not all that wonderfully, if you look at his declining ratings in the polls. And that presents a particular problem for the Labour Party in Scotland – where the political battle is different and the electoral timetable much shorter, with Holyrood elections due the year after next.
But let us stick with Sir Keir for now. Those freebies scarcely helped. We tend to prefer a Prime Minister who buys his own specs. Then there is the Downing Street internal squabbling which resulted in the resignation of Sue Gray as Chief of Staff, relinquishing a salary bigger than the PM’s in the by-going. Not a good look.
Although, again, I doubt if such melodrama has all that much impact on the fretful family in Fife, battling to feed their kids and heat their home.
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Which brings me to the economy. Labour came to power on a platform of change. Or, rather, Change – very definitely Upper Case. Folk just aren’t feeling it.
OK, so there were caveats. Change would take time. Change was non-specific. Change meant replacing the Tories. Change meant… On top of which, the withdrawal of Winter Fuel Payment from most pensioners. The anger is tangible. One can almost taste it in the chilly air.
Now, I get the concept. The early narrative was that the PM and the........