Neoliberal Brexiters are no friends of the ‘red wall’

Labour must make it clear that regions suffering under the long squeeze of austerity have still more to fear from the Tories

Apart from his bad luck in being struck twice by the need to go into isolation from Covid, the leader of the opposition, Sir Keir Starmer has a huge, indeed historic, weight on his shoulders. To put it bluntly: this government is so appalling that if, as it hopes, it is re-elected either this year or next, many of us will be seriously tempted to emigrate.

The sleaze that finally overturned one of the safest Tory seats in the land, namely North Shropshire, brought to mind a line in Imperium, a novel by my old friend Robert Harris: Cicero (for it is the fictional he) describes a dodgy politician as giving corruption a bad name".