British Labour take a 9 point poll lead

From Opinium, reported in the Guardian.  This, the Guardian is at pains to point out is the biggest lead the party has enjoyed since 2014 or (as they might have preferred to put it since Before Corbyn.

You have to wonder how Labour might have done in 2017 or even 2019 if the right wing of the party had not spend four years trying to assail the hapless and affable Mr Corbyn, and instead directed their energy towards getting a Labour government elected.

Also described by the Guardian, the Lib Dems (remember them?) are threatening a Ribble Valley style upset in the absurdly conservative seat of North Shropshire.

I am horrified to realise I am old enough to remember Eastbourne and Ribble Valley - two glorious by election victories of thirty years ago, where the Lib Dems overturned massive Tory majorities in traditional Blue seats.  The Conservatives were at the wrong end of a decade in power, seen as being in office but barely in power, lurching from crisis to crisis and facing a Labour Party that had replaced its worryingly leftwing leader with a younger, more media friendly person - in this case Neil 'father of Stephen' Kinnock.

You'll remember Stephen Kinnock as the chap who was so delighted at Labour's gutsy performance in 2017 he almost looked unhappy.

Unrestrained Joy on the faces of Stephen Kinnock and his coterie as they absorb the 2017 election result.

With self control like that, he should play poker.  No indication of the internal celebration undoubtedly going on under that worryingly smooth pate.

Of course, one should be cautious.  Following the humiliations of Eastbourne and Ribble Valley, the Conservatives won the subsequent election in 1992 and remained in power for another six years.  Neil Kinnock went off to enjoy a long career of doing obscure, but probably well remunerated, jobs in Europe, so he can probably be blamed for Brexit as well as losing the 92 election.  Starmer has a lot of work to do to convince people - on the left as well as the right - that he is worth voting for.

There is a chance of a Labour government in 2024.  It's a long road.  But the process needs to start now.  Corbyn's tenure was derailed by factionalism.  Starmer has shown himself very unwilling to heal rifts.  That will mean labour going into a future election still licking the self-inflicted wounds of 2019 and risk returning another five years of Conservative misrule.

He needs to restore the whip to Corbyn and start acknowledging the left are a valid and legitimate part of the party.  He needs to remember the galvanising effect of the 2017 manifesto, with its clarion calls for social democracy and progressive policies.  He needs to reject the bland managerialism and unconvincing attempts to portray 'quiet competence' that won't 'spook the markets.'  That's not worth voting for.  Whatever it is that made Starmer want to be a Labour Party member and fight to become Labour leader, he needs to find it again.