‘Travelling circus’: Starmer says Tory hopefuls have lost economic credibility

theguardian.com:

Keir Starmer has dismissed the acrimonious Conservative leadership race as a “travelling circus”, in which the candidates have demolished their party’s economic credibility by promising billions of pounds of unfunded tax cuts.

Speaking on a visit to Berlin where he held talks with the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, the Labour leader highlighted the “fanciful” spending pledges made by the five contenders battling it out to succeed Boris Johnson.

“They’ve just shot through their economic credibility,” he said. “And of course although he’s now dropped out, one of the individuals making these claims was the actual chancellor – and obviously the former chancellor’s in the travelling circus as well.”

Buoyed by discussions with the centre-left Scholz, from Labour’s sister party the SPD, who pulled off a surprise win in last December’s election with a campaign promising “respect”, Starmer dismissed the idea that a new Tory leader could rebuild the party’s reputation.

“It’s a party that has got no sense any more of what it stands for,” he said. “That’s why you have all these candidates scratching each other’s eyes out, taking lumps out of each other.”

Asked if the Tories could see a bounce in their poll ratings once Boris Johnson leaves Downing Street and a fresh leader takes over, Starmer insisted he was unconcerned.

“We’ll have to see what happens, but it feels like a football team that is dragged into the relegation zone, can see the drop, and is desperately trying to change the manager in the hope and belief that that’s going to make the difference. It doesn’t work in football and it’s not going to work for the Conservative party.”

He said the past few days, which have seen all the candidates apart from Rishi Sunak promise to