Keir Starmer needs a Covid plan of his own

It’s clear now that Covid is going to be with us for the long haul. Most sane voices are talking about the remainder of the crisis in terms of years, not months. Yet the government has still not been able to take itself out of short-term mode. They seem to be holding out for a vaccine miracle. Stranger still, the opposition is still in short-term mode on Covid as well. I don’t think this can continue without becoming a large problem for Starmer, both internally within Labour and also in the polls.

Starmer’s plan when it comes to the crisis so far is simple to explain. He wants to support the government wherever possible to demonstrate two things. Firstly, to show that he isn’t playing politics with the crisis while trying to be as helpful as possible to the government’s effort to help contain the virus. Secondly, to show that the government’s fault was in its handling of the details.