ONE swallow does not make a summer, but millions will have been relieved to see Labour leading in the latest opinion poll from More in Common.

For the first time in more than a year, Reform UK has been pushed into second place.

Undoubtedly, this is a result of the overdue departure of the unlamented Keir Starmer, and the mild optimism generated by Andy Burnham’s accession to the premiership.  The growing scandal over Reform’s financing will have played a part too.

However, the figures indicate the scale of the problem Starmer has bequeathed to his successor. Labour may lead in the poll, but it is only with 28 per cent of voting intentions.

This is a full 6 per cent less than the party secured at the 2024 general election, itself an historic low for a party forming a government.

It is clear that if there is to be any durable and significant Labour recovery it will require far more from the government. The Starmer years will take a lot of effacing from the public memory.

Of course, it would be absurd to pass judgement on Burnham’s governance barely 10 days into office. However, he needs to step up the pace of change radically if he is to retain such hopes as working people have invested in him.

The failure to contemplate private-sector rent controls, the ambiguity over tax thresholds and a wealth tax, along with the absolute continuity of military policy, including backing the prolongation of the Ukraine conflict, all evoke too much undead Starmerism for comfort.

Burnham has promised a 10-year plan in due course. Judgement may be reserved until that appears.

However, there is a danger that rather than acting on problems which are well-established and have been analysed for years, like social care, the privatised water industry or the housing crisis, he kicks the cans down the road.

That would not represent the break with 40 years of neoliberalism which he promised upon his assumption of office.

There are issues on which he could make a break with Starmer’s baleful record without troubling the public purse. For one, he could translate his verbal recognition of Labour’s errors on Gaza – crimes might be a better term – into concrete policy actions.

That would mean a complete ban on weapons sales to Israel, an acknowledgement that a genocide is being committed against the Palestinians, wider sanctions against Israeli leaders and an embargo on all settler-produced goods.

It must also mean an end to the proscription of Palestine Action as a “terrorist” group, one of Starmer’s most shameful acts.  Failure to reverse this will leave Burnham and his team struggling to defend the sentencing of anti-genocide activists as terrorists.

Rebuilding Labour’s electoral coalition depends on a new approach on this issue, as on many others.

Burnham could also revive his interest in electoral reform. Among its other democratic merits, it is the surest way to keep Nigel Farage out of Downing Street for ever. Abolition of the House of Lords should also be on his agenda.

But for many he will be judged on how he eases the cost-of-living crisis immediately and how he reorients the British economy thereafter. If he does not deliver there, this week’s polling may prove a mere blip.

Restore the whip

It is an outrage that Diane Abbott, Britain’s first black woman MP, remains suspended from the Labour whip for, in effect, speaking about her experiences and understanding of racism.

Her treatment was typical of the factional authoritarianism of the Starmer-McSweeney regime. It is a wrong Andy Burnham and new chief whip Anneliese Midgely should right without delay.