Sunak Wins Over the Markets. Voters Are Another Story
A recent lead in the polls has put a spring in the opposition Labour party’s step.
Listen up.
Photographer: Leon Neal/Getty Images EuropeTwo short letters have become notorious in UK political history for their candor about dire state finances. Reginald Maudling, outgoing Tory chancellor in 1964, told his Labour successor and friend, Jim Callaghan, “Sorry old cock, to leave it in this shape.” In 2010, Liam Byrne, Labour’s Chief Secretary to the Treasury, also offered his Liberal Democrat successor, David Laws, a mock apology: “I’m afraid, there is no money.”
Their jokes were hung around their necks by their opponents, but both had the ring of truth. The governments that followed were hemmed in by their predecessors’ profligacy. Today’s opposition Labour party should remember them as a warning.