By returning from his holidays and echoing Lib Dem Ed Davey and Labour ex-premier Gordon Brown to demand an energy freeze to spare families from scorching rises in bills, Keir Starmer has drawn a thick red line in British politics.
On the one side he and other influential voices are demanding bold, radical action to avert a worsening cost of living crisis.
They want to suspend another cap increase later this month, with typical bills around £1,200 as recently as of April heading for over £4,000 in January.
And on the other side of that line the Tory politicians with the influence to cancel those rises – Boris Johnson and Liz Truss or Rishi Sunak, bashing each other for the No10 crown – fiddle while household budgets burn.
The Conservatives are ideologically incapable of doing what’s required in the national interest, Truss in particular fixated with unfair tax cuts that would, in Sunak’s own words, bung billions to large businesses.
And he’s no saviour when another Covid-style intervention is beyond the inner Thatcherite in a Sunak who deserves praise for the furlough scheme when Chancellor during the pandemic, but exasperation for woeful mistakes before and since.
Yet both Starmer and Davey fail to fully walk the talk when it’s clear that energy and water privatisations are not working. Restoring the pair to public ownership and control would be popular and would help with regulation.
Brown floated temporary nationalisation of energy firms to avoid crippling price hikes, so why not permanently?
Labour MPs beyond the Left of the party whisper that Starmer could be forced into a U-turn on a U-turn and restate his dropped promise to restore power and water as public utilities in England – with Wales and Scotland avoiding water privatisation.
Rising star Zarah Sultana and the Enough is Enough campaign, which is challenging poverty, pay and indecisive policies, is gaining ground.
Just as rail strikers capture a national mood when tens of millions of squeezed workers admire folk taking a stand, nationalisation is no longer a dirty word.
The Tories are on the wrong side of the argument. Labour is half way.
Public ownership would be the real deal for the British public.
