The Conservatives have run out of ideas – but where are Labour’s alternatives?

Perhaps Keir Starmer has secretly built a massive ideas factory in a bunker underneath Labour HQ. But I doubt it, writes Andrew Grice

Starmer needs rocket boosters as the polls continue to point to a hung parliament (PA)

Labour was quick to claim it is “winning the battle of ideas” after the Conservatives ruthlessly stole its proposed windfall tax on oil and gas companies. A fair enough complaint, but what are Labour’s big ideas?

In media interviews, its frontbenchers sometimes struggle to spell them out. To his left-wing critics, Keir Starmer is an empty vessel who has walked away from the Corbyn-like platform of his Labour leadership campaign. More worryingly for Starmer, some of his allies are now concerned that big ideas are in short supply and his instinctive caution stops him seeking and articulating them.

They fear that being “not Corbyn” and a serious, rule-abiding antidote to Boris Johnson will not be enough to inspire the public, so Labour must now set out transformative policies to explain how it would change the country. I think they are right: you can win a party leadership election by “not being” someone else, but a general election requires a wider vision and appeal.