Labour Frontbench ...Low On Authority, High On Gestures

‘So many Shadow Ministers are only able to spout jargon and slogans’

- Leo McKinstry

The Labour party is in a desperate, perhaps terminal, crisis. Battered by four successive general election defeats, wiped out in its traditional stronghold of Scotland, and detached from its working-class roots in England, it is in danger of becoming an impotent irrelevance.

There is an Italian saying that a fish rots from the head, and nothing illustrates Labour’s decline more graphically than the dismal calibre of its current frontbench. Sir Keir Starmer’s team is truly an assemblage of mediocrities. Low on authority but high on gesture politics, it looks more like a student union council than an alternative government.

Even the handful of big names in this low wattage lineup are profoundly unimpressive, as is highlighted by the case of Angela Rayner, the self-regarding Deputy Leader. After Labour’s dire recent performance in the Hartlepool by-election and local municipal contests, she emerged as the big winner from the political fallout, outmanoeuvring Sir Keir by the ruthless exploitation of her popularity among activists.

Although removed from her post as campaigns co-ordinator, she ended up with a major promotion and three new titles. To Ms Rayner, who has always had a high opinion of her own talents, her rise is no more than she deserves. She once said, “I like to be underestimated because it gives me an edge.”