Should former party leaders mind their own business?

The political phenomenon of the “backseat driver” is hardly new, but it’s a bit of a thing at the moment. Neil Kinnock, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, and Jeremy Corbyn have all been giving Keir Starmer private and public advice about taxation, welfare reform, the general conduct of government, and, in Corbyn’s case, even about local authorities selling off allotments.

- SEAN O'GRADY

It’s meant to be helpful (maybe not in the case of Starmer’s immediate predecessor), but it doesn’t always work out that way…

What’s their problem?

On the whole, and crudely speaking, they think that Starmer isn’t really left-wing enough, which is ironic because they too (excepting Corbyn) were often criticised for just that in their own time.

Most recently, Kinnock has backed a “wealth tax” (never a prominent part of Labour policy during his own leadership), and wants to apply VAT to private healthcare charges (supposedly analogous to private school fees). Brown doesn’t, but he does think child poverty is an under-regarded problem and that the winter fuel allowance, which he introduced, needs to be restored.

Tony Blair has been pushing digital ID hard, just as he did when he was in No 10, when he never quite managed to make compulsory ID cards acceptable. More critically, Blair is supposed to have told Starmer that “this isn’t working” in a wider sense, and that net zero is “doomed to fail” (a point he later rowed back on). Were he not already in Starmer’s cabinet, Ed Miliband would also be outspoken about the downgrading of his Green New Deal.

Are they right?