DAILY MAIL COMMENT: Selfish Labour puts the country at risk

Labour’s ridiculous psychodrama puts Britain in grave danger.

A week after local election results revealed how much they were underestimated by the electorate, the Government has ceased to be a functioning institution.

Up to this point Sir Keir Starmer had been running the government without a clue.

Now, after this cataclysmic explosion, he is a mere puppet of a Government without hope.

The consequences for every man, woman and child in this country are dire.

Desperate, financial markets observe the Government and see only uncertainty and risk, causing public borrowing costs to rise.

Global investors are coming to the same conclusion, prompting them to move away and invest their money in better-run countries.

This arrogant fight for the Labor leadership will put further pressure on an already moribund economy. This risks costing taxpayers countless billions of dollars in interest payments as the national debt spirals and mortgage costs rise.

The economic incompetence within Labor ranks is so great that they either fail to understand, or wantonly ignore, the basics of how public finances work.

Sir Keir Starmer’s rival Andy Burnham has repeatedly complained that Britain is ‘hostage to the bond markets’.

Big Dealer Andy Burnham has repeatedly complained about how Britain is ‘hostage to the bond markets’.

And this week one of his supporters, Paula Barker MP, suggested that ‘bond markets must fall into line’ under a reshaped and ‘progressive’ Labor Government. There is only one way to escape the captivity of financial markets: Borrow less. But Labor just wants to spend, spend, spend.

The key point here is that the misleading legislative plan laid out in the King’s speech this week promises no change to the soaring welfare bill, which already stands at a mind-boggling £333bn a year.

Starmer has proven too timid to tackle the backbenchers on this issue, and any successor would complete Labour’s transformation into a Welfare Party.

Worse still, a by-election involving Burnham would turn into a general election via a messy mandate, giving markets more time to get scared.

And if it fails to win a seat in parliament (a strong possibility given the Reform vote), it would cause a chain reaction of confusion, with Angela Rayner or Ed Miliband coming in 10th place, sending investors into further panic.

This is not what voters believe they are voting for in the 2024 election.

Inexcusably, the country faces months of adrift as Labor continues its clumsy campaign, followed by an unwelcome, anti-democratic turn to the hard Left. Britain is being betrayed by this indecisive and disloyal Government.

Human rights fiasco

Like many of Labour’s promises, the much-heralded human rights treaty ‘reset’ is merely a mirage.

Last year the Prime Minister promised to ‘look again’ at how the agreement was used to prevent the deportation of foreign criminals and asylum seekers.

However, the text signed yesterday by all 46 countries that signed the European Convention on Human Rights was openly condemned as a waste of time that will not make any difference in practice.

Judges both at home and in Strasbourg are confident that they will continue to follow the original text of the agreement, which remains unchanged.

As Conservatives and Reformers rightly attest, the only way to mitigate the corrosive effects of the agreement is to eliminate it altogether.