Rayner is right about this – Starmer must now deliver

Angela Rayner’s tilt at the leadership is a reminder to Sir Keir Starmer that there is a lot for him to do on the domestic front.

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In her most critical intervention since leaving the cabinet last year, the former deputy prime minister said that “people feel the system isn’t working for them” and that, “if we don’t have an answer to that, the right-wing populists will offer theirs”. On both accounts, she is right. It’s also true that “the very survival of the Labour Party is at stake”, and that “we’re running out of time”.

Sir Keir is, however, entitled to feel that the reminder was both unnecessary and unhelpful. He is acutely aware of the problem of the cost of living - and indeed one of his arguments against Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage is that they supported a military action that put up the price of oil. And he must know that his government has not yet done enough to rescue the public services. As we report today, in advance of the Covid-19 inquiry being published, the NHS has not recovered from the pandemic and is emphatically not in a fit state of preparedness for another one.

The prime minister obviously feels that he has done well on the international stage in recent weeks, putting himself on the right side of public opinion against the initial strikes on Iran by the United States and Israel, and opposed to the escalation of the conflict since.