It’s not been the greatest time for Keir Starmer. He’s lost his political director, chief of staff and head of communications. He saw Labour lose its deposit in the Chesham & Amersham by-election, and is bracing himself for another defeat in Batley and Spen this week. Things have got so bad that his party is starting to make doe eyes at Andy Burnham, of all people. And yet, almost unnoticed, he has come up with an attack line that is actually making the Tories uncomfortable.
For the past few weeks Labour has been hammering away at a simple point: the June 21 unlocking was delayed because Boris Johnson failed to close the border. True, the attempt to rebrand the Indian/Delta strain as “the Johnson variant”
