DAN HODGES: Is there any spending that would keep Keir Starmer from crying: It’s not enough!

Labor traffic spokesman Jim McMahon was tasteless. ‘We’re not going to take crumbs off the table,’ he raged as he broke into Boris for his latest act of verifiable betrayal. ‘They promised us we would be equal, but today we got a big train robbery – to rob the north of the chance to realize its full potential.’

If anything, McMahon’s attack was somewhat underestimated. He certainly failed to reach the level of anxiety achieved by Yorkshire Post editor James Mitchinson, who declared on social media: “When the northern coal miners – like my father and his father – were robbed of their livelihoods, their families suffered. . My family. Proud industrial north, left to rot. What they did today is worse. ‘

Response to the publication of the government’s integrated railway plan – according to which Labor and its allies have tried to make £ 54bn of new infrastructure investment the biggest crime north of the Peterloo massacre – it was hysterical and hyperbolic. But it was also instructive.

In February, when Mr. Keir Starmer appointed Rachel Reeves as the shadow chancellor, was framed as a turning point. Reeves, an economist who worked in Bank of England and HBOS, would finally force its party to face the need to accept fiscal responsibility. “Earning people’s trust that we will be responsible custodians of public money is a prerequisite for gaining the right to be heard on all other issues,” she said in her first important speech in that role.

Well, now we know what the actual attitude of Labor towards public money is. It is estimated that £ 54 billion of this represents nothing more than ‘crumbs’.

But we also know something else, and that is that Starmer will soon be thrown into the same trap of a political elephant that swallowed Ed Miliband.

The political landscape inherited by Red Ed was defined by the banking crisis and the deficit it caused. But Labor could not ignore its dependence on public spending. So Miliband’s strategy was simple – ignore it as a problem and hope it disappeared. He occasionally condemned David Cameron and George Osborne for failing to gain control of public finances. And in the next breath, commit Labor to more borrowing, more spending, and ever-increasing debt.

Starmer is expected to take the same approach, this time for Covid. He will try to make voters forget the fiscal impact of the pandemic. Hundreds of billions on vacation. An additional ten billion for the urgent expansion of the NHS. Introduction of vaccine and restorative drug.

Labor will try to close its eyes – and the public – to the economic realities after the pandemic, demand that the government spend as if the financial tsunami had never hit, and shout ‘Betrayal !!!’ with each fiscal adjustment.

While, of course, they played to their trump card, the money was ‘wasted’ on Test and Trace and the ‘rich friends’ of the Tories. But there is a problem with this strategy. Public records are not littered with shadow ministers angrily demanding ‘Where’s the Test and Trace audit trail?’ or ‘Where are the guidelines for public-private procurement?’ Instead, the Labor line at the time was: ‘Forget the bureaucracy, just give our nurses their masks!’

Another problem is whether this money was really recklessly wasted or spent in a noble but misguided attempt to protect the British from a deadly virus is debatable. The money is gone. Work has no way of magic it back. And the argument “They spent £ 30bn on Test and Tracking, so we’re going to spend another £ 30bn on HS2” simply underscores the client’s fiscal inconsistency.

And there is another problem with Labor strategy. He relies on treating people – especially the people of the north of England – as fools. Starmer believed the announcement last week gave him a chance to drive a populist wedge between Boris and Red Wall Britan. But he miscalculated.

First, he inadvertently reset the balance of expectations and realities regarding the government’s balancing agenda. It is a public secret that ministers are increasingly disappointed with Boris’s habit of offering stars and then just the moon. “It makes promises that can’t be fulfilled, we move heaven and earth to fulfill half of them, and then it looks like a failure,” one complains.

But now Starmer is the one who replayed his combination. “He tells everyone that we betrayed the north. But in a few months, these projects will be launched, ”explained one government official. “These are real investments, the right jobs and the right infrastructure. And the voters will notice. ‘

Starmer thinks they won’t. He is confident that a storm of negative headlines will obscure the reality of what has just been announced. But as one minister put it: “Take the whole Leeds-Manchester high-speed line. It would cost £ 40 billion, be completed in 2043 and reduce the four-minute 30-minute travel time of the upgrade we just announced. The scheme we’ve unveiled costs £ 23bn and will start delivering benefits in the 2030s. That’s why they want to spend another £ 17 billion just for a quick cup of coffee. ‘

The entire Labor strategy is based on the infantilization of northern voters and the hope that they will not recognize this sensible fiscal compromise. And it is based on another wrong premise. That is, the perception of these voters about rising levels lives on and dies upon the delivery of HS2.

It doesn’t work. As one Red Wall MP told me, “Great traffic megaprojects aren’t a big deal in my constituency. Getting to know immigrants and making sure the shelves are stocked is a concern for the people in my patch. ”

Another Red Waller agrees: “Boris and Grant Shapps coped well with this. The Prime Minister put the backbenchers at number 10. Then Grant took them through the details and showed them where the local wins were. There were a few people who were dissatisfied. But the general feeling is that this is something we can sell on the doorstep. ‘

Starmer made a different calculation. Gambling that if you cry ‘Not enough!’ long enough and loud enough, this will prove to be enough to draw Red Wall voters back to the wing.

The problem is that this is the same game that Ed Miliband did. It’s the same game Jeremy Corbyn made. It’s the same game Neil Kinnock made. And it’s the same game that Michael Foot made.

What’s more, as we approach the election, this ‘Not Enough’ exclamation will become more deafening. NHS. schools. Police. Advantages. Tuition fees. Salary in the public sector. Where exactly and when will Labor’s new commitment to fiscal honesty show itself?

What is the question that will make the Labor leader or the shadow chancellor finally muster up the courage to tell his party ‘Okay, that’s really enough’?

Currently, all the evidence shows that this day will never come. We now know that Labor leaders look at £ 54 billion as petty cash. Starmer has already fully signed the financing of HS2 and the Northern Powerhouse plan, which, given the current uncertainty about inflation and interest rates, is equivalent to signing a blank check. So if he can’t curb his desires to spend across the railroad, what hope is there when it comes to his client’s other holy cows?

The leader of the Labor Party believes that the United Kingdom will not notice the Red Wall. That his and his party will be constantly dependent on endless extra, free spending past voters.

It won’t. Boris is not a person who takes the north for mugs. It’s Sir Keir Starmer.