Week by week, the Labour leader is growing in stature and driving a promising recovery from December’s nadir
The pandemonium, vanity and mayhem inside No 10 take their cue from the prime minister. The revolution devours its own, and so it was with Dominic Cummings. But out here a pandemic rages. Hundreds of people are dying before their time every week, and thousands are losing their jobs, while the Brexit precipice is only weeks away.
In the shadow of all that, Keir Starmer’s victory in elections for Labour’s ruling national executive committee slipped by barely noticed. It wasn’t a clean sweep – in fact it was so close it went to 37 rounds of counting. Though candidates supported by Momentum won seven of the 15 positions, this vital overall win gives the leadership a stronger working majority on the party’s ruling committee – essential when it comes to appointing party officers, overseeing selections to seats, and implementing the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s report recommendations to reform the disciplinary procedure that failed so catastrophically over antisemitism. The result of that disaster, according to one shadow cabinet member, is that the party has had to set aside more money to deal with court cases than for the important May local elections.
