Bad idea to insult your heartland PM

IT WAS OFF to Liverpool last week for the Labour conference but if, as one of the party's former Prime Ministers once suggested, “a week is a long time in politics” the last 14 months must have served as an eternity to this embattled one.

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And in the city known as the birthplace of The Beatles, Sir Keir Starmer arrived desperately in need of one of the band's greatest hits, namely “Help!”

Because somehow a party that was swept into power on the back of a vote that crushed all opposition has slumped in the polls to an unprecedented degree, and is now led by the most unpopular Prime Minister in polling history.

And that includes Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair after Iraq and Boris Johnson after Covid. That takes some doing!

But back to those polls, which starkly spell out how Labour is haemorrhaging votes, and which are all backed by the nation's leading poll watcher, Professor Sir John Curtice.

They say that to the Left, traditional Labour supporters are deserting the party to move to the Lib Dems or Green Party.