Keir Starmer is now so sure of power that he is acting as if election victory is a foregone conclusion.
After visiting Nato troops in Estonia, just 100 miles from the Russian border, he has set his sights on a visit to Washington for a pow wow with Joe Biden.
A seemingly insurmountable poll lead, after four years of Labour Party transformation, has bolstered his confidence.
The lead stems from frustration with the Tories after 13 years, Covid fallout and the narrative that Liz Truss crashed the economy.
The Truss interlude shattered the illusion of Tory economic competence in much the same way as Britain’s ejection from the Exchange Rate Mechanism did in 1992.
Stormin’ Starmer? Labour leader Keir Starmer visits NATO troops in Estonia, just 100 miles from the Russian border
The broader reality is that the Tories are the victims of Harold Macmillan’s famous aphorism ‘events, dear boy, events.’
It has been one thing after another in the shape of the Labour borrowing and debt legacy of the financial crisis, the pandemic and Russia’s war on Ukraine.
A sclerotic response to taking advantage of Brexit freedoms hasn’t helped. The Middle East, as an economic event, may yet join the list. The reality is that Britain is emerging from the miasma in much better shape than could have been hoped.
Much of the negativism pumped out by the Office for Budget Responsibility, the Bank of England and global scrutineers such as the IMF, has so far proved wide of the mark.
It is impossible for Britain, as a wide-open economy, to escape sluggish world output and deteriorating international trade.
An intense commercial relationship with America, the UK’s biggest single trading partner, and improving access to growing Pacific markets provides some immunity.The table is set for real debate on the economy before the expected 2024 election.
No longer can Starmer and Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, rely on asking voters whether they are better off now than 13 years ago. That is not sufficient given the traumas the country has lived through.
It is even less so now, against all expectations, the battle against inflation is being won in spite of the disruptive efforts of junior doctors.
Their demand for a 35 per cent pay rise, when consumer prices have fallen to 3.4 per cent, and average wages are rising by 7.3 per cent, looks ever more preposterous.
Among the more important consequences of lower inflation has been the swift change of borrowing costs on the money markets.
It means the mortgage payment disaster, propagated by Labour, is retreating with much less collateral damage in the housing market and arrears than projected.
As critically, the cost of servicing government debt will come down with a bump.
The Chancellor found ways to use the developing headroom, the extra resources, in the Autumn Statement to make work more attractive by lowering national insurance and making permanent the full ‘expensing’ of capital investment.
After the November data the Chief Secretary to the Treasury Laura Trott notes there is still some £13bn of headroom.
The opportunity in the March Budget for tackling the tax burden caused by the freezing of allowances is glaringly obvious.
There is also a chance to create clear blue water with Labour by savaging inheritance tax, which raised £5.8billion in the first eight months of this fiscal year.
Labour complacently thinks it doesn’t need to show its hand. The Labour tax increases proposed: VAT for public schools, the end of non-domicile status and closing loopholes on North Sea oil taxation are insufficient to make significant changes to public services.
Proposals to bulldoze planning rules to build houses and infrastructure are woolly and underestimate the power of Nimbyism.
John Lewis’s proposal to build an apartment block above its Waitrose store at Bromley in Kent has provoked outrage.
There is no reason to think Labour neighbourhoods will be any more supportive of train tracks running through the back yard or losing parkland to walk the dog.
As for Labour’s £28billion to be spent on a great green revolution from midway through the next Parliament, the sourcing of funds is a mystery. Lurking in the background must be a hidden tax agenda.
All of this gives the Tories a decent chance to remake their image as the party which beat inflation and is to be trusted on lower taxation and growth.
