'Politicians do not have the luxury of a lighter heart’

The truth is that no politicians, at least no practising politician that I know, ever has the luxury of a “lighter heart” – there’s always so much to worry about: real day-to-day problems and, much more taxing, imaginary problems about the future, basically, do I have one?

In Brighton and Hove, the Labour Party is, if not sitting pretty, in a much better place than it could have ever imagined itself to be at the start of last year’s summer hols.

First, there was that little matter of the local elections. I don’t think that Labour apparatchiks in their wildest dreams could have dared to hope that they would double their number of councillors to 38. Nor could they have expected that the Greens would collapse to just seven councillors – losing two thirds of their councillors – and that the Tories would also crash badly, going down from 14 to just six councillors.

And the goodies didn’t end there for Labour, as the popular Green MP for Brighton Pavilion Caroline Lucas announced her retirement. It offers Labour the tempting prospect of seizing her seat at the general election, giving them a clean sweep of all Brighton and Hove seats, for the first time since 2005.

One of the Conservative Party’s shrewdest prime ministers was Harold Macmillan. A television interviewer, expecting an answer about one of the great issues of the day, once asked him what kept him awake at night? “Events dear boy, events” was Macmillan’s languid but ever so perceptive reply.

And just a couple of months after being elected, the new Labour leader of Brighton Bella Sankey must have known exactly what the old fox meant. First, just weeks into office she discovered she had inherited an £11 million deficit in the council’s budget, bequeathed to her by the outgoing Green administration. So almost her first act was to have to plan for yet more cuts in council services.

And then just last week Ms Sankey, along with the rest of us, no doubt watched with sadness as one of Brighton’s landmarks caught fire – the Royal Albion. Demolition is still under way but there’s been an unexpected immediate and a longer- term cost that the council had not anticipated.

In the short term, the closure of King’s Road and the resultant traffic jams in the city will have had and continue to have short-term (and perhaps long-term) economic costs to the council and local businesses.

Then there’s the cost of re-housing (and who knows for how long) local residents who lived close to the blaze. In the longer-term, although the expense of refurbishing the hotel will not fall upon the council, the fire has thrown a spotlight on to the very poor state of Pool Valley – that too will surely require refurbishment.

Also in dire need of refurbishment is Rishi Sunak’s government. He moved into Downing Street less than a year ago – the third prime minister inside two months. He appointed a new cabinet, but with many of the same cast members who had very briefly served Liz Truss and, for slightly longer, Boris Johnson (remember him).

They looked tired and out of ideas then and even more so now. Sunak must spend his time on the beach, when he’s not building sand castles, figuring out how he can build a new cabinet, which despite 13 years of Conservative rule, will need to look fresh and bursting with new ideas – a big ask.

Labour leader Keir Starmer also has a big ask.

He is facing the worst-looking government in modern times. He has rebuilt his party which has for the past 18 months commanded leads in the opinion polls of around 20 per cent and yet still the great British public withhold their love or even their enthusiasm for him.

Just as Tony Blair went to the electorate with what he claimed was a new – or refurbished (that word again) party – so Starmer is making the same claim. But while the fresh-faced Blair did excite genuine enthusiasm among the electorate, the same cannot be said for Sir Keir.

But there’s hope yet for Starmer. Clement Attlee, probably Labour’s greatest prime minister ever, was so under-stated that he barely generate any enthusiasm in his own household yet he defeated Churchill by a landslide and created our modern welfare state. So who knows?

Finally to Ed Davey, the leader of the Liberal Democrats. He can build his sandcastles and paddle happily in the sea with a succession of impressive by-election wins under his belt, safe in the knowledge that whatever happens at the next general election, he is almost guaranteed that his party will do considerably better than they did last time round.

And that’s how it looks from here – enjoy the break from politics

Ivor Gaber is professor of political journalism at the University of Sussex and a former Westminster political correspondent.