Proving us wrong?

We’ve said before that Keir Starmer would come under pressure even from the Labour centre-ground to offer more politically, so as to rebuild and consolidate Labour support.

Truss’s sharp swing to the right, and the economic spasm caused by Kwarteng’s mini-Budget, may prove us wrong.

On 16 September 1992 the Tories, after 13 years in office, crashed Britain out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism, a deal linking EU currencies in preparation for the euro. Although the economic turmoil proved short-lived, it destroyed the idea that the Tories were competent (if cruel).

From 1992 to 1997 John Smith and then Tony Blair could glide to election victory with a minimum of social promises. And from 1993 Labour Party membership grew. It reached 400,000 (about the same as now) before the 1997 election, and then with Blair in power declined fast to 150,000.

The unions, despite Liverpool, are more assertive now than in 1992. Strikes are on the rise, while in 1992 workers had seen eight years of big defeats since the miners’ strike. It’s not the same. How different it turns out depends on what we do.