Keir didn’t see the spectacle of the end of Labour’s honeymoon - Vladimir McTavish

Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves delivers her speech at the Labour Party Conference.Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves delivers her speech at the Labour Party Conference.
Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves delivers her speech at the Labour Party Conference. | Stefan Rousseau / PA Wire
How did it all unravel so quickly for this Labour government? It took a few years for the grassroots party members to rebel against Blair. They’ve barely given Starmer three months.

It started when Chancellor Rachel Thatcher (sorry Rachel Reeves, I always get confused) told conference that “we are not the party of protest” at the very moment that a protester was frog-marched out of the hall.

Reeves promised that “there will be no return to austerity”. But only because they’re now calling it something else. Blame the £22 billion black hole.

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The country is obviously broke if cabinet ministers can’t afford to pay for their own clothes. This is due to The Twenty Two Billion Pound Black Hole.

We are hearing a lot about it these days, although no one has told us where it is yet. That’s probably classified information.

In years to come, the Twenty Two Billion Pound Black Hole will probably open up as a tourist attraction like Churchill’s Cabinet War rooms or Scotland’s Secret Bunker.

The public are not impressed when they hear about ministers getting handouts and hospitality from billionaires.

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OK, it’s not breaking the rules to get guest tickets to see Taylor Swift, and if one looks at the register of interests, politicians of all parties regularly accept invitations to hospitality at major events.

It’s the double standards of accepting freebies at the same time as denying benefits to poorest in society.

It must be galling for a single parent struggling to pay for their child’s school uniform to hear that the Chancellor of the Exchequer gets given free outfits to wear.

Starmer has a larger overall majority than Clement Attlee’s Labour government which won a landslide in the 1945 general election. He saw that as mandate to bring in the welfare state.

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There was no talk about the black hole left by World War II, despite the fact that the country was quite literally full of actual black holes at the time, after the Blitz.

That government founded the National Health Service which provided free prescriptions, free dental care and free glasses.

Now people in England have to pay for their prescriptions, it’s nigh-on impossible to get an NHS dentist and the only person who gets free glasses is the Prime Minister. Free to him, although they cost Lord Alli over £2000.

Tony Blair started wearing specs when things started to unravel for him around the time the Gulf War. He’d never worn them before and he’s not been seen to wear them since. It was almost certainly for cosmetic effect, to make him look more intelligent or more compassionate.

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I’m not quite sure why Starmer started wearing glasses, but again it happened overnight, not long before the election. It appeared to be part of some makeover.

I’m guessing they were supposed to complement his quiff to give him the appearance of Clark Kent. All the same, who pays two grand on a pair of specs? You can get them for a tenner at Superdrug.

Anyway, Superman was given a dose of kryptonite on Wednesday, when the Labour Party rank-and-file rebelled and voted against scrapping the winter fuel allowance.

It really was quite a spectacle. One that Keir didn’t see coming. He should have gone to Specsavers.

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