The new premier cast her eye across the Cabinet table and took in the empty room. Soon her newly assembled cabinet would gather for the first meeting since the General Election of December 2024. 

Rachel Reeves allowed herself a few moments to take it all in and just briefly marvel at how she had somehow ended up as Prime Minister.

The terrible winters of 2021/2 and 2022/23 were of course responsible for the Labour landslide that had followed the collapse in Tory fortunes. Nothing Labour had said or done before had made that much difference. Keir Starmer’s endless policy reviews and relaunches had not nudged the needle one jot. The squabbles continued. But finally, Tory polling numbers had started to slide during those grim months of strikes, fuel shortages, empty shelves, electricity problems, and regional lockdowns thanks to the two worst flu seasons in living memory. They never recovered.

Johnson’s unprecedented sacking of the Bank of England governor for his refusal to do something about the roaring inflation level had been her moment as she had torn a clearly overruled and shellshocked Sunak to pieces in the Commons, ending his hopes of the leadership in one glorious afternoon. 

The Labour leadership contest of summer 2024, following Starmer’s sudden bout of despair and resignation, had been brutal. Newly returned by-election winners, Andy Burnham and Laura Pidcock, shouted each other to a standstill as they wrestled over the future direction of the party. 

Reeves still had to pinch herself occasionally to be sure she really had won that race despite being the bookies long odds also-ran. Barely noticed by the media, she had sneaked through the middle as an exhausted membership, sick of infighting, took a surprise gamble on someone with a sound economic background to clear up the mess.

The all-woman shadow cabinet she had selected had taken their seats in the Commons that first Wednesday after the leadership win. She well recalled standing up at PMQs and beginning with “What a f*ing mess these boys have got this country into, Mr Speaker” as she waved at Johnson, Gove and Sunak. It was a master move that would get Labour finally noticed by the public announced the press in unison as they roared on Angela and Yvette taking it in turns to pound the hapless, floundering fag end government day after day. Nothing had been seen like it since Gordon Brown and Robin Cook had taken apart the Major government. 

In the end Johnson could put the election off no longer. It turned into a classic, old school pocketbook election: as Reeves kept asking – are you personally better off than when you voted for Brexit in 2016. The answer was a resounding no and a Labour landslide.

Incredible to think that at one point people thought Labour could never win again.

Rotten Borough