Will the real Keir Starmer stand up?

Keir Starmer begins 2022 looking like the best-placed Labour leader since the distant days of Tony Blair. That at least is what many opinion polls currently suggest. During December, the party moved into a sustained lead over the Conservatives, making Starmer more highly rated as a leader than Boris Johnson. But much of this has been the result of the public turning away from the government thanks to revelations about Number 10’s egregious flouting of its own Covid rules rather than them seeing Starmer’s leadership in significantly more positive terms. In some ways those who supported Johnson in 2019 have merely moved from active dislike to a basic uncertainty about Labour and its leader.

And however good Labour’s present position is – one that would see it win back perhaps all of its lost Red Wall seats – it is still insufficient to guarantee a Commons majority: it would make it the largest party but one unlikely to be able to govern on its own.