Yvette Cooper is the government's new gatekeeper
Where exactly is it that British elections are won and lost? Popular suggestions include Basildon, Worcester, Nuneaton, Workington and Stevenage. All true, more or less, at one time or another. But here's the less evocative but more accurate answer: the Treasury and the Home Office. No government responsibility means as much to the voter as the pound in the pocket or the safety of the street. These days — dominated so often by Nigel Farage — we could add the security of the border, too.
Labour's pessimists certainly agree that the next election might be lost in the Treasury, by the chancellor. Fiscal rules, means-testing the winter fuel payment, the spending review, tax rises, welfare cuts: not since Mrs Brown's Boys hit terrestrial television
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