Andy Maciver: Enhancing Scotland is Starmer's key to enhancing Britain
Most honeymoons are glorious. A week into the new New Labour era, Sir Keir Starmer’s is proving to be so. This is the easiest his time in Downing Street, which already looks like it will stretch to a minimum of ten years, will get. He won this change election by not being the other guy, and he is likely to enjoy a free pass by the press and the people for most of the summer.
That is not to say, of course, that he has not done all the right things this week. He has. The Nato Summit comes at a wonderful time for Sir Keir to parade himself on the global political catwalk, and with an absence of global leadership from the USA or Germany, along with the masochistic political strategy of Emanuel Macron, Europe, the Middle East, the world needs a leader. Why not him?
Closer to home, it already seems clear that Sir Keir has learned from the mistakes of the last decade of the UK Government's approach towards the nations of the UK. The Conservative government loved nothing more than to engage in hostilities with the Labour Welsh government and, in particular, with the SNP Scottish one.
This was a highly credible strategy for a party which only wanted to appease its core vote, however, as everyone outside the Conservative Party understood, it did not meet with the approval of the run of the mill, apolitical centrist voter, who voted Labour last week because they’d like to see both their governments getting along in the interests of the country rather than trying to one-up each other in the interests of their party.
Sir Keir’s immediate whistle-stop tour to meet the devolved leaders, including a warm chat with John Swinney, which........
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