Why Labour is faced with a genuine rain-check on its historic opinion poll lead - David Blunkett

Having been rejected by the Conservative Party membership, he is now rehabilitated without being approved by anyone other than the Conservative Parliamentary Party.

Suella Braverman, having been sacked by the hapless Liz Truss for breaking security rules, is back in Cabinet in her short-lived, previous role as Home Secretary.

Gavin Williamson in the midst of controversy once again also returned to Government only to stand down again earlier this week.

Michael Gove is back as the Levelling Up Secretary of State – as the Conservatives wish to present it, replacing the MP for Middlesbrough, Simon Clarke.

This month there are several major events. The most obvious ones are COP27, the climate change conference in Egypt, and the new (although it doesn't feel that new) budget from Jeremy Hunt, Chancellor of Exchequer.

Whatever he announces next Thursday, it's not going to be good news for most of those who are either desperately trying to make ends meet, or who are just above the breadline.

The fiasco of the Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng debacle is going to be paid for by those least able to do so. Investment in rail infrastructure in the North of England is going to be "downgraded", which is a euphemism for “trashed”. A promise made one moment, a U-turn the next. As was once the phrase used against the Tory Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, “In, out, shake it all about - now we say stop, now we say go".

As interest rates rise and young people find it even more difficult to have their mortgage application approved, the richest Prime Minister we've ever had has been established in Downing Street. So rich, that he is the first incumbent to have a disposable wealth greater than the incumbent in Buckingham Palace.

Despite this, Labour is faced with a genuine rain-check on that historic opinion poll lead.

For the traps set for the Opposition are numerous. Not just the narrative that this is, after almost 13 years, some sort of new government, but that the Liz Truss aberration was just that: a moment of madness for which the Conservative party should be forgiven.

Memories are short, as history teaches us. In 1956 Sir Anthony Eden stepped down as Prime Minister after the Suez crisis in which Britain and France joined with Israel in trying to confiscate the Suez Canal from Egypt, under the Egyptian threat of “nationalisation".

The intervention of the United States and, for that matter, the international markets, led to a complete volte face. Harold Macmillan took over, and in 1959 obtained a majority of 100.

As I have pointed out in these columns before, even with a toff as Prime Minister under Sir Alex Douglas Home in 1964, and with the extremely able and television savvy opposition leader Harold Wilson, Labour only managed a majority of just four.

Again, in the Autumn of 1991 inflation was at record levels and unemployment nudging three million, yet six months later, John Major was back in Downing Street. Another Conservative victory snatched from Labour's optimistic opinion poll leads just weeks before.

I'm sorry for sounding like a record stuck in the same groove, but it is going to take a lot more than the trashing of our economy, and the devastation of millions of people’s lives for Labour to get elected. It will require bold policies which are reassuringly moderate and sensible, and, at the same time, radical enough to face up to and deal with the challenges of tomorrow.

With local government on its knees, with the health service literally in meltdown, and with social care almost forgotten, further cuts in key public spending areas can only spell disaster.

Let us be under no illusion. The areas of the country that will suffer most are ours. We have seen this recently in terms of the total and utter chaos in public transport. Bus services cancelled because of the lack of subsidy. Rail services so badly impacted by a combination of underfunding and incompetence, that many people have turned back to using their car.

But don't believe this is inevitable. Over the last four weeks, I've travelled a number of times on trains in the south-east of England. On every occasion, the train has been on time, the service has been running as normal and the facilities, if not brilliant, have at least been good. What a contrast to the services we have been experiencing on both sides of the Pennines. The total meltdown of normal timetables, ancient rolling stock, cancelled services, and now promises laid aside.

You do not need to look far to see why the difference is so stark.

The figures speak for themselves. In the North, including, of course, Yorkshire, the Government’s average spend on public transport is £349 per person. In the South, it is £864.

Those who, presumably, sincerely believed that there would be new investment in their constituencies in Yorkshire and the north-east must, at the very least, have a reality check. Yet history teaches us that the Conservative Party can always snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. Which is why no one should presume that victory is ours.

What is required is hard work, policies of hope, and a much higher profile for a Cabinet in waiting.

David Blunkett is a Labour Party politician, and served as the MP for Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough.