In 2016, soon after his enforced departure from politics, Ed Balls recalled: “In the period from 1996 to 2004, I don’t remember anything the Tories did having any effect on my life whatsoever.”
There are some inside government today – basking in a New Labour-sized majority – who view Kemi Badenoch with similarly magisterial indifference. “Nothing” was how one aide replied when I asked what they made of the Conservative leader’s speech on net zero this week. But Labour recognises that it needs to absorb the implications of a changing political climate.
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