Starmer's Three-Pronged Plan Of Attack Against Truss

It may be tasteless to say so, but the energy crisis is the best thing that could have happened to Labour's chances at the next election. With the departure of Boris Johnson, much of Keir Starmer's pitch to the country was about to disappear.

- John Rentoul

Starmer presented himself as a leader of integrity, the alternative to Johnson's rule-breaking slipperiness, with a bit of dull competence thrown in as a contrast to his opponent's entertaining act of not being quite across the detail. Despite attempts to portray Liz Truss as the "continuity Johnson" candidate, most of those advantages have gone.

There appear to be three prongs to Starmer's plan of attack on the new prime minister. They are all things he would have done anyway if Johnson had survived, but the new situation brings them into sharper focus.

The first is policy. Labour's plan to freeze energy prices for six months, agreed between Starmer and Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, when the Labour leader was on holiday in Mallorca last month, opened up a clear divide between government and opposition.

It would be hugely expensive, and the way it is "paid for” doesn't really add up, depending on tricks such as assuming a saving on debt interest payments from the lower inflation rate and backdating the notional revenue from the windfall tax on oil and gas companies to when Labour first called for it in January. Furthermore, a lot of the benefit would go to the better-off, who tend to use more energy, but the policy is simple and very popular.