Labour Landslide Could Make Keir's Job Harder, Not Easier

If the latest opinion polls are correct, the general election is already in the bag for Keir Starmer.

- SIMON WALTERS

He hasn't just got one foot in No 10 - he is so far ahead he can start measuring up the curtains.

That’s because Labour is on course to win 468 seats with the Conservatives reduced to fewer than 100, according to Survation’s new survey of more than 15,000 people. That would mean a Commons majority of nearly 300. Yes, you read that correctly – 300.

If it turns out to be right, Starmer could do almost anything he wanted. He wouldn’t have to worry about what the Labour manifesto said. He could say voters had given him carte blanche. And if they give him 468 out of the 650 MPs In Westminster, who could argue?

Yet would super-cautious Keir actually know what to do with such a massive mandate? And could it make his job of prime minister harder, not easier? With only 125 or so ministerial jobs to hand out, the 300-plus Labour MPs left idling on the backbenches would have little to do but plot in the Commons bars and tea rooms.

Look at what happened the last time Labour won a huge majority in 1997: Tony Blair went on to win two more elections – but never by such a big margin.