Where is Keir Starmer’s joy?

‘Thank you for bringing back the joy’. So effused Tim Walz to Kamala Harris whose new-found position as Democratic nominee for the US presidency has turned the race for the White House upside down.

You might expect Walz, Harris’s pick for vice president, to say nice things to his boss. But in terms of crowd numbers, their enthusiasm and the polls, Harris – the dancing, laughing, Happy Warrior – really has made a striking impact on the American public, much to Donald Trump’s consternation.

The contrast to when Joe Biden was the Democrats’ presumptive candidate is remarkable. Of course, there were concerns about Biden’s age. But that wasn’t the party’s main problem: it was that, as Robert Reich put it, ‘so many Americans believe the economy is bad when in fact it’s damn good’.

The Biden administration’s massive investment in infrastructure and green technologies has paid off across almost all metrics, most notably producing 15 million more jobs.