Labour bids to be seen as able and competent, not bold and radical | Larry Elliott

Never mind being big and bold, Keir Starmer and Anneliese Dodds want to be seen as competent managers

Big economic shocks tend to do for prime ministers. Jim Callaghan was finished after the winter of discontent, and the writing was on the wall for John Major once the Bank of England lost its fight with George Soros and his fellow speculators on Black Wednesday. Gordon Brown would have had a decent chance of beating David Cameron had it not been for the financial crash.

Brown's defeat in 2010 was the start of a run of four election defeats for Labour, something that last happened between 1979 and 1992. Since it became a party of government in the 1920s it has never lost five in a row.