Starmer's Likely Usurper Is Starting to Make Her Move

The skies across the Gulf are lit up by flames, the price of oil and gas is heading through the roof and the bond markets are demanding ever higher yields on the interest of the UK’s debt mountain. Is Keir Starmer worried? Apparently not. “The British economy is better placed than it otherwise would have been to weather this storm,” the prime minister declared last week. “Since the election we have built up our national resilience.”

This message of sunny reassurance was immediately contradicted by Nick Butler — a former strategy executive at BP Plc and adviser to Labour’s last Prime Minister Gordon Brown — who told the BBC that fuel shortages and rationing are increasingly likely in the next few weeks. The power supplier EDF estimates the price spike could add almost £300 ($400) a year to the average UK energy bill, a hike which the state will be expected to mitigate. In further bad news for an already unpopular Labour government, long-awaited interest rate cuts for hard-pressed mortgage holders are off the agenda.