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HARRY COLE
Bungled green policy & anti-Semitism row…after worst 2 weeks as Labour boss, Starmer shouldn’t open the bubbly yet
The finger is pointing at Sue Gray for two key missteps
IN the dying days of Boris Johnson’s government, an image of crates of fizz being wheeled in the back door of Downing Street could not be more perfect for an eagle-eyed snapper.
Torpedoed by Partygate inquisitor Sue Gray’s report into lockdown busting, it looked like they were at it again.
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Within days of that snap on the eve of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, Johnson would face a wounding confidence motion and be out the door within weeks.
And Sue?
Well, after lots of shouting, she ended up working for Labour, hardening up the Opposition for another crack at running the country after years of going soft in the wilderness.
But until now a well-kept Whitehall secret was that the giant booze delivery was actually for Saint Sue.
The hotshot political ratcatcher had attempted to order some cat food for the Cabinet Office kitties kept around the draughty building to kill mice.
Instead, her prosecco order for the Platty Joobs weekend was sent to her office.
And like many things before, the potential embarrassment was quietly brushed under the carpet.
But are bubbles the wrong order in her new job too?
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After months of gushing profiles in the stuffier newspapers about how she was shaking things up, getting a grip and slaying the “blokey culture” around Sir Keir Starmer, the Sue Gray fizz has started to go a little flat and the leaks are springing.
Reports this week of tear-stained Labour advisers being made to hand over their phones drew a wry smile in Whitehall, where Gray’s reputation relied far more on menace than ever actually catching a leaker.
Keir Starmer is not a man of principle – he said he’d tackle anti-Semitism but was happy for one to stand in Rochdale
Given she was represented by the white collar FDA union during her ugly departure from the Cabinet Office, claims that suspects were “questioned” without union reps present may well be hypocritical.
But they are also pathetic.
If that really is the calibre of people preparing for government, then heaven help us because they are going to be eaten alive if they ever actually get into power.
Battle-hardened mandarins will run rings round this lot.
And it fits the feeling that while still flying high in the polls, there is no way that Labour are actually ready for power.
Starmer has had his worst two weeks as leader and the finger is pointing at Gray for two key missteps.
He dithered too long ditching the £28billion green investment policy — allegedly under guidance from Gray that the flip-flop reputation hurts.
Then came the dumper truck of spin on their bungled handling of the Rochdale by-election candidate who went on an anti-Semitic tirade.
Anyone with the faintest of political radar should have seen the second the tape landed in the hands of a Sunday newspaper that the story would be fatal.
Yet Labour were told about it pre-publication and made a decision to try to stand by Azhar Ali — while also insisting the party was no longer a Jew-hating cesspit.
What both episodes prove is that Starmer — and Sue — are too slow to correct, and when they panic, the position becomes farcical.
Devastating dither
In opposition it is merely clumsy, in government that sort of dither can be devastating.
While the most pessimistic person I have spoken to in the party about their chances at the next election is Sir Keir Starmer himself, everyone else seems to be measuring the curtains.
Gray is literally working out where certain people are going to sit in 10 Downing Street after the next election.
A daily “who is up who is down; who is in, who is out; who will be director of this and who will be cast out to the wilderness of the DWP” is delighting Labour MPs.
The discussion is not if Labour will win but when — rather than whether they are ready to lead.
What is frustrating those few Tories who have yet to throw in the towel is quite how beatable Starmer has looked in the past two weeks.
How long before his MPs start asking publicly how Sunak cannot be doing better at hitting the barn door — and whether there is anyone else that might . . .
Bash leaves a Nazi taste
ANOTHER week and another Tory boy scandal at the London Universities Conservatives group.
Fresh from being forced to ditch a debate titled “This House would sink the boats and invade Yemen”, the Hooray Henries and Henriettas settled on a much less risky “Come dressed as your favourite politician” party last week.
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Cue scenes of carnage when one clown turned up as British fascist leader Sir Oswald Mosley, complete with Nazi-style armband.
“Not only did you believe it appropriate to bring this item, but you also threw it at a speaker,” reads a leaked letter suspending the nasty youth from attending any more port-fuelled events.
Tory HQ have their heads in their hands, with a source telling me: “The only armbands this idiot should be wearing are ones to stop him drowning in a puddle.”
LABOUR are red, Tories are blue, have I got some scandal to share with you.
With all those long nights away from home and a steady flow of subsidised booze on expenses, affairs in Westminster are a regular occurrence.
Yet love across the political divide still shocks.
I hear a married Tory MP – a junior government figure no less – and his younger Labour MP lover have both been warned to knock off the nookie by eyebrow-raising colleagues.
Andy has pop at the south
WITH this year’s General Election already set to be the most divisive yet, politicians should shun any culture war rhetoric, Andy Burnham warned last summer.
So it’s amusing to see the music-mad mayor of Manchester trying to restart Britpop’s class war by claiming northern bands are better than their soft southern rivals.
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The Labour stirrer couldn’t resist a dig when he announced that his city will host a rival to the Brit Awards – the UK’s first Northern Music Awards.
Stone Roses fan Andy said: “Historically, northern music has always been a cut above, especially the music from working-class communities.
“There is a strong, talented and passionate musical heritage here that deserves to be celebrated.”
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Merseyside’s Mel C and Rochdale’s finest, Lisa Stansfield, will be honoured at Burnham’s fancy gong ceremony next month.
None of that soft southern stuff . . .