Sir Keir Starmer's routine of copying David Cameron and George Osborne risks misreading voters

Perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising that the mastermind of austerity is supportive of Sir Keir and Ms Reeves.

They are copying the playbook that he and David Cameron mastered during the Coalition government of blaming everything on the previous party.

Even in the election earlier this year, Rishi Sunak was still mentioning the traditional joke note that New Labour Chief Secretary to the Treasury Liam Byrne left for Mr Osborne saying there was no money left.

So it’s not surprising that the new government is trying to hammer the Tories every chance they get.

In the last two Prime Minister’s Questions sessions, Sir Keir has mentioned the £22 billion black hole in public finances eight times.

It’s perfectly reasonable to bring this up, but to get the public on side Sir Keir has to show he can also bring about change.

Polling shows this was why people voted for Labour, not just to try and balance the books as the Prime Minister clearly thinks.

Luke Tryl, director of More In Common, explained: “In focus groups a few would bring up “paying back what we spent in covid” as a concern, but it was very much a minority view. 

“For most, especially Labour voters it was the pervasive feeling of “broken Britain”, wanting life to be less of a struggle and a sense [the] Tories had blown it.”

Sir Keir needs to find a way to inject a bit of positivity into the government otherwise his poll numbers will keep plummeting.