Could Labour's tough choices cost them votes?

After a number of awful, miserable weeks for the SNP, thanks to Labour, they finally have a bit of a spring in their step.

They even got some comedy mugs made up to hand out to journalists ahead of the Westminster recess.

The cups were accompanied by a note on House of Commons paper from Stephen Flynn, reading: “The Labour Party has a new range of mugs in production. They’re made in China – just like Sir Keir Starmer’s latest policy.”

Will the row over the two-child limit shift votes? The SNP clearly believe it will.

So too do some in Scottish Labour.

“Cannot imagine knocking a door and having to toe this line,” one former MP tweeted.

Yet as Parliament goes into recess, and Labour selects more candidates for the general election we’re all expecting next year, that’s exactly what they’re going to have to do.

And the party could yet ask their Westminster hopefuls to toe an even trickier line.

In an interview on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves was asked repeatedly whether the bedroom tax was staying.

She promised that while full plans around benefits and taxation would be set out nearer the general election, many Conservative policies would not be reversed.

Reeves said she had “lost count of the number of times I’ve gone through the division lobbies and voted against what the government have done”, before adding: “Does that mean we’re going to be able to reverse all of those things? The sad truth is we’re not going to be able to do that because of the dire economic inheritance that an incoming Labour government will face.”

Yesterday, in an interview with Tony Blair, Sir Keir Starmer told his predecessor that the party needed to make “tough decisions”.

“The stability of our economy is absolutely vital,” he said.

He mocked some of those criticising his unwillingness to scrap the two child limit.

He said the party was “having a row at the moment about tough choices”.

“We keep saying collectively as a party we have got to take tough decisions and in the abstract everyone says, 'that's right Keir'.

“And then we get a tough decision, we have been in one of those in the last few days, and it's, 'well I don't like that, can we just not make that one, I am sure there is another tough decision somewhere else that we could make'.

“But we have to make the tough decisions. This isn't some reflection on some focus group that says, 'we'd like Labour to have an economic straight jacket on', it is the fundamentals.”

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But, as I said in my Unspun on Monday, there are many in Labour who think going into an election promising to scrap a policy described by charities, including Barnados and the Child Poverty Action Group, as the “biggest driver of rising child poverty in the UK today” should be a fundamental too.

Can’t they both be fundamentals, or does it have to be one or the other?

“It's a long way to the election,” Mark McGeoghegan, the University of Glasgow researcher and Herald columnist tells me. “But this in addition to other ditched pledges is doing a lot to undermine the change agenda Labour will need to succeed north of the border.”

He says the impact will depend on how much the row cuts through to the public, and in particular those 2019 SNP voters who might be thinking about switching to Labour.

“But it does give the SNP an effective line of attack against Labour.

“Along the lines of Labour want to force the Scottish Government to spend millions mitigating Tory welfare policies instead of spending that money fixing the NHS, for example.

“Alongside things like Brexit, it allows them to argue that Labour are no better than the Tories and that would, I think, carry water with SNP to Labour switchers.”

In terms of cut through, the problem for Labour here is that there is no shortage of people who want to talk about the impact of the policy.

On Wednesday, Sally Ann Kelly, the CEO of Scottish child’s charity Aberlour wrote to Sir Keir urging him to “look at the evidence and hear the voices of those furthest away from power and privilege about the difference ending this policy would make to our poorest children and families.”

She told him the policy was pushing families to breaking point.

“It shouldn’t be controversial. In fact, this should be one of the easier choices as Prime Minister if you are committed to championing equality and social justice. The truth is poverty is a political choice.

“Children do not choose to grow up in poverty; but governments make choices that either improve people’s lives or don’t. What will you choose to do?”

That's a question Starmer, Reeves and all those Labour candidates knocking on your door will not be able to escape. 

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