Has Starmer’s Labour found the Tories’ weak spot?

A leaked email from Keir Starmer’s director of policy that hit the headlines this week contained an interesting line: that Labour must become ‘unashamedly pro-business’ in order to ‘be the party of working people and their communities’. This has caused predictable outrage on the left of the party. At the other end of the political spectrum, the Tories have been quick to mock the whole idea. At this week’s PMQs, Boris reminded Starmer that at the last election Labour wanted to dismantle capitalism – now it wants to be the party of business? Really?

But the Tories need to be careful about how hard they laugh at this one. While Starmer’s bid to make Labour the home of British business has so many things going against it that on balance it will probably fail, if Starmer does succeed that could well win him the next general election.

Before they mock too much, the Conservative party may wish to think about how much their relations with the business community have soured in the past five years.