Labour Strategists Are Already Writing "Story" For First Months In Power

Senior Labour figures have spent recent weeks devising a "story" to tell the public during what could turn out to be a tricky first few months in government if, as expected, they win the general election on 4 July.

Should Keir Starmer now become Prime Minister in as little as six weeks' time, the party will take comfort in the fact that work had already quietly begun to devise the messages Labour will deploy as soon as they step into Downing Street. A source familiar with the project described the proposed approach as "campaigning in Government".

At the start of this week, the majority of MPs arrived in Westminster expecting a fairly normal few days before the two-week, Whitsun recess. One last Prime Minister's Questions until June. Some new economic data for Rishi Sunak to talk about in the hope that the country will listen. And more opinion polls that suggest the public is largely taking no notice of the Prime Minister's optimistic claims. As things stand, Labour's average lead over the Tories is 21 per cent, according to the Sky tracker.

While a summer election has never been entirely off the table, most MPs didn't expect that by the end of this week they would be clearing their parliamentary offices and trudging back to their constituencies for six weeks of campaigning. But on Wednesday, Sunak took the political gamble of his life and gave a statement calling a 4 July general election, with the rain battering down on him and D:Ream's Things Can Only Get Better – an anthem synonymous with Labour's 1997 landslide – blaring from a protester's speaker beyond the gate at the end of Downing Street. 

It was a gamble that many felt the famously indecisive Prime Minister didn't have in him, and that has forced all political