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A change in the political weather
Someone who knows Keir Starmer well had not seen him for a couple of months, and told me that he is “unrecognisable” – confident, relaxed and cheerful. It is remarkable what a 20-point lead in the opinion polls can do for someone.
But this isn’t the only sign of a shift in the tectonic plates. Chloe Smith, who was briefly the eighth work and pensions secretary since 2010, has announced that she will not be standing again as MP for Norwich North, a seat she won in a by-election from Labour in 2009. There will be more such announcements in the coming months.
And Ryan Shorthouse, founder of the Cameroon think tank, Bright Blue, has quit, saying Rishi Sunak is “a thoughtful and decent person, but he is short-sighted politically and seems to be a bad judge of character”, and that “the Tory government has failed my generation”.
The Independent's View From Westminster
Someone who knows Keir Starmer well had not seen him for a couple of months, and told me that he is “unrecognisable” – confident, relaxed and cheerful. It is remarkable what a 20-point lead in the opinion polls can do for someone.
But this isn’t the only sign of a shift in the tectonic plates. Chloe Smith, who was briefly the eighth work and pensions secretary since 2010, has announced that she will not be standing again as MP for Norwich North, a seat she won in a by-election from Labour in 2009. There will be more such announcements in the coming months.
And Ryan Shorthouse, founder of the Cameroon think tank, Bright Blue, has quit, saying Rishi Sunak is “a thoughtful and decent person, but he is short-sighted politically and seems to be a bad judge of character”, and that “the Tory government has failed my generation”.
The Independent's View From Westminster
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