Keir Starmer is sleepwalking towards victory – let’s hope his rising stars can shine

Labour may not have workable policies but at least it would have some capable ministers – wouldn’t it, asks John Rentoul

Labour is going to need talented shadow ministers such as Wes Streeting (left) and Peter Kyle to fulfil their promise (PA)

After the smoke cleared on yesterday’s opening exchanges in the long election campaign, the shape of The Problem emerged. The Problem is that Keir Starmer is stumbling towards an election victory for which he is unprepared.

He protested in an interview this morning that he had set out “five big speeches, five massive missions” a year ago. “We’ve put the detail out, backing papers and all the rest of it”, he said, and still people say that they don’t know what he stands for.

Yet he knows perfectly well that what people mean is that they don’t think he is likely to achieve his “five massive missions”. Most people have not read the thousands of words of National Policy Forum documents and what Starmer calls “backing papers” but they sense that important ingredients such as specifics, funding and credible mechanisms are missing.