Labour goes into its conference this weekend with a friendly warning it would do well to heed. The Starmerite thinktank Labour Together has just published its analysis of why Labour won. Its conclusion: Labour has been “cautiously hired, on a trial basis, liable to prompt dismissal if it deviates even slightly from its focus on voters’ priorities” and that it must “not get distracted by pet projects”.

No 10 should take note. Last week, it was reported that Starmer’s team are working behind the scenes to urge MPs who topped the private member’s bill ballot to take forward legislation to legalise assisted dying , a reform that appeared nowhere in Labour’s manifesto but which Starmer has made clear he personally supports. This is despite it being a major reform that could be open to significant abuse, and with nowhere near enough work done on what sufficient safeguards would look like, and how we would monitor whether or not they were working.

Private members’ bills enable backbench MPs to introduce legislation to the Commons. The best chance of getting a bill into law is to get one of the prized top spots in the ballot at the start of every parliamentary session. MPs can either advance their own legislation – campaign groups will try to target them ready-made bills – or adopt a “handout” bill, where the government asks MPs to take on usually technical and relatively uncontroversial changes it has not found time for. There are many procedural hurdles a bill has to pass and it has far greater chance of becoming law if tacitly backed by the government.

Keir Starmer has made no secret that he backs a change in........

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