LABOUR is “back in the game,” a senior party source boasted following Keir Starmer’s unexpectedly radical reshuffle to further deCorbynise his top team.

Certainly, the timing of the Labour knight’s rejig was helped politically by, yes, Boris Johnson, and that row over the Christmas Party that did or didn’t happen in Downing St last year during lockdown.

Just to keep the squeeze on, Labour MPs have reported him to Scotland Yard for allowing the rules to be breached. Allegedly.

Reshuffles seldom go smoothly and often entail a bitter behind-the-scenes power struggle, particularly if a senior colleague refuses to budge.

Starmer has put his best performers front of house in a more extensive reshuffle anyone had expected; indeed, the chief comrade insisted he now had his “strongest possible team” on the pitch.

One ex-frontbencher observed: “The Blairites have got out of the belly of the Trojan horse and massacred the soft Left.” Right on cue, the Prince of Darkness materialised.

Lord Mandelson described Starmer’s changes as a “further re-professionalisation” of the party but argued the leader judged people on ability “rather than whether they’re Blairite, anti-Blairite, soft Left, hard Left or whatever”.

However, in the time-honoured tradition there was a glitch; a tiny oversight. Keir hadn’t told Angela.

Earlier on Monday, as rumours spread in Westminster about a reshuffle Rayner insisted it wasn’t happening because she would have been told. But slap-bang in the middle of the deputy leader’s speech denigrating Tory sleaze, Keir was making the changes. Understandably, Rayner was not best pleased.

Starmer is emboldened by recent events that have strengthened his position because, following last May’s local elections in England when Labour lost 300 councillors, he tried to blame Rayner, but, after a major flare-up, overcompensated and handed her a raft of new jobs.

Rayner’s hat collection now includes not only deputy party leader, deputy Leader of the Opposition and deputy first secretary of state but also shadow chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and shadow secretary of state for the future of work.

As the party’s elected deputy leader, the Manchester MP has her own powerbase with close links to the trade unions, which, from Starmer’s perspective, is extremely useful.

This week, Sharon Graham, Unite’s new chief, warned the party’s biggest benefactor would cut its political donations and use the money on union campaigns. She dismissed the reshuffle as “white noise”.

The most significant Shadow Cabinet appointment was Yvette Cooper’s. The former Brownite Cabinet minister, whose forensic approach and long experience on home affairs will cause problems for Priti Patel, who is discovering the old Whitehall adage is true: the job of Home Secretary is a poisoned chalice.

Cooper declared the reshuffle showed Labour now had a team, which “could be in government tomorrow”. Her appointment has put paid to any suggestion of a challenge against Starmer.

Another important switch was the mediagenic Lisa Nandy from the foreign affairs brief to shadowing Michael Gove on the levelling-up agenda.

Her aim is clear: to win back those “red wall” northern English seats. Asked if the reshuffle was a move to the Right, the Wigan MP replied crisply: “We’re moving North.” Which, she made clear, included Scotland.

The Scottish portfolio in the Shadow Cabinet was, of course, a no-brainer given there is only one Scottish Labour MP.

Ian Murray, representing Edinburgh South, possibly has the hardest job of all; trying to revive his party’s fortunes in the midst of the continuing polarisation of Scottish politics with the Tories championing the Union and the SNP independence.

While the Conservatives on Friday retained the Greater London seat of Old Bexley and Sidcup, albeit with a much reduced majority, strategically, the key development was an unspoken pact between Labour and the Lib Dems.

The yellow peril took a back seat to give Labour the maximum opportunity to dent the Tory lead, notching up a 10% swing. The favour will be returned Thursday week when the Conservatives defend another hitherto safe constituency, Shropshire North.

But, here, following the resignation of Owen Paterson in the midst of the parliamentary standards row, things will be different as the undercurrent of Tory sleaze has run through the campaign.

Were Ed Davey’s party to take North Shropshire or come very close to doing so, then this could mark a significant moment; that Starmer might seriously consider a pre-General Election pact to create what the Lib Dem leader called an “an anti-Tory progressive alliance”. Come 2024, he may have no alternative.

While the 10% swing to Labour in Old Bexley was impressive - greater than the 9% nationwide swing that propelled Tony Blair into Downing St - even this giant leap would not be enough to enable Starmer to do the same. He needs a ginormous 13% swing across Britain.

The polls of late have been going Labour’s way. In an interview with The Times yesterday, Starmer declared: “The green shoots - or red shoots - are there.”

He insisted Labour was now the party of Middle England and also claimed next year the contrast between Opposition and Government would “become starker” as the cost-of-living squeeze took hold. “The Achilles’ heel of this government is that it is a high-tax, high-price, low-growth government. That is a toxic combination.”

Intriguingly, the Labour leader was keen to talk up business and how what was needed was a “government that has a respectful, grown-up relationship with business; that’s what we’ve put on the table”. The lines were an echo perhaps of Lord Mandelson.

But while the Shadow Cabinet might look competent, serious, and professional, there is an awful long way to go. A poll this week placed Labour seven points behind the Tories on economic competence.

The prospect of being out of power for almost two decades, should the Opposition lose their fifth consecutive election in 2024, must concentrate its mind completely.

But, if Labour is indeed back in the game, it has to rekindle the zeal of Blair’s party and dedicate itself to one thing and one thing only: winning.