Keir Starmer and Labour’s ‘blame the Tories’ strategy will not hold forever – Laura Kuenssberg

Keir Starmer’s team want to be able to tell their own story – that they inherited a broken economy, a broken country, and ultimately managed to turn it around – but politics doesn’t always follow a Downing Street script.

His speech in Downing Street, then the Rose Garden moment a couple of weeks ago, the speech coming in a few weeks at the Labour’s party conference, then the Budget – the short-term pain they’re setting out may not find willing ears among the public.

And those big set piece moments may be overshadowed by real-world events. The reflexes of those in charge when the unexpected happens often define governments more than carefully conceived strategies.

It’s still a very new administration. For all the preparation they did before the election, the Labour top brass are now realising how quickly time passes when you’re in power. One minute you’re exhausted from 18-hour days campaigning, the next moment you’re ushered into Downing Street and getting a bacon sandwich, a coffee, and a terrifying security briefing from the Civil Service.

Power changes hands immediately. Responsibility and blame might transfer more gradually. But shift they will.

This new government is working hard to link the problems of the country to Tory failures.

But however loudly Labour protests about its genuinely challenging inheritance; however many times ministers point out, in evermore minute detail, what has gone wrong, the march of events moves irrevocably to a moment when blame or credit is for them.