𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Labour’s big beasts are fighting a battle for the soul of the party. Tony Blair penned a 5,700-word essay eviscerating Sir Keir Starmer’s policies. Then Andy Burnham, the man hoping to succeed current Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, fired back with his own lengthy newspaper intervention.

But the spectacle of senior Labour figures trading ideological essays and political point-scoring feels painfully detached from reality. Britain is in the grip of a cost of living crisis, with food and energy prices soaring. Hard-working people are struggling to pay their bills while millions of young people are battling to find work.

On Thursday, former Health Secretary Alan Milburn warned of a “lost generation” in a bombshell report.

Fresh figures showed the number of young people neither working nor studying has topped one million for the first time since 2013, hitting 1.01 million in the three months from January to March.

Yet while Westminster has been consumed by this red-on-red row, Britons have continued to suffer.

In his essay, Sir Tony attacked Labour’s flagship workers’ rights plans and its above-inflation minimum wage rise.

He urged the party to ditch its net zero targets, cut welfare and rethink the pensions triple lock.

The intervention drew criticism from almost every Labour leadership hopeful, including Mr Burnham, Wes Streeting and Sir Keir himself.

Mr Burnham, who is widely expected to launch a leadership bid if he wins next month’s Makerfield by-election, accused Blair of failing to address inequality.

The Greater Manchester mayor said the problem with Blairism was that it “sometimes saw the market as always the answer”.

It is worth remembering that Mr Burnham, who hopes to win next month’s Makerfield by-election and topple Sir Keir, served in Sir Tony’s government.

Mr Streeting struck a similar tone, arguing the “striking weakness at the heart of” the intervention was its failure to mention inequality.

Meanwhile Sir Keir said he did not “agree with much” of Sir Tony’s comments.

While Labour tears itself apart over Blairism, Starmerism and who should lead next, voters are still waiting for answers to the problems hitting their wallets, their jobs and their futures.