Labour pains
ON the eve of its party conference, Labour is in a giant mess.
Yesterday allies of Keir Starmer were forced to stamp on backbench plotters who want to install Andy Burnham as party leader.
In truth, the Manchester Mayor — now showing open contempt for his own Prime Minister — is still miles away from having a serious crack at No10. He doesn’t even have a Westminster seat.
His programme for “wholesale change” — including mass nationalisation, a 50p tax rate and deluded belief that he can defy the bond markets — is Corbynism disguised under a Liam Gallagher-style haircut.
But voters will look at the chaos unfolding inside Labour after only a year in power and wonder what the hell is going on.
Meanwhile Starmer — hit by another resignation from his top team — is desperately trying to regain the initiative.
Under serious threat from the rise of Reform UK, he will tell furious voters he gets their concerns over immigration.
But does he really? In a speech today, he will once again risk effectively comparing the concerns of ordinary folk over illegal migration with a “violent struggle” against the far right.
That’s not “patriotic renewal”.
The Epping mums protesting against asylum hotels weren’t racists or fascists.
Neither were large numbers of those on the Unite the Kingdom march.
Until Starmer fully grasps and tackles the reasons behind their fears, he will struggle to win them back.
Ed’s con job
JUST days after Donald Trump branded Net Zero a “con job” comes evidence suggesting the US President may well be right.
Far from lowering bills — as Ed Miliband faithfully promised — a rush to renewables will see standing charges for electricity go UP by £90 by 2031.
Industry regulator Ofgem says the rise stems from the huge cost of connecting wind and solar farms to the grid to meet unnecessarily hasty Net Zero targets.
Miliband is recklessly betting billions in the hope that green tech will deliver.
It’s customers who will suffer if his gamble doesn’t pay off.
Born yesterday
HOW can an illegal migrant who claimed to be 15 when he was actually 23 have fooled the authorities so easily and for so long?
Around 40 per cent of small boat migrants who claimed to be children so they could not be deported were later found to be adults.
Most of them had destroyed their official papers.
It shouldn’t be beyond the wit of Border Force staff to recognise an obvious and cynical ploy.
