Yesterday’s excruciating morning media round by Wes Streeting was far from the first time this year Labour has called for something the government’s already explicitly committed itself to. Guido’s looked back over the last month alone and found an astonishing five further examples:

1. 10^th January – Starmer called for the recruitment of volunteers to help with vaccinations: “they needed an army of volunteers… What I would do is what I did last week, which is launched a campaign to say where you can volunteer to help with this”

• 4^th January – the government launched a “Join the NHS COVID-19 vaccine team” campaign

2. 10^th January – Called for press conferences on the vaccine roll-out, with Steve Reed telling Sophy Ridge “if the government would give a daily briefing, or they told us how much supply of the vaccine is available, how much of the vaccine has actually been put into people’s arms, and in every part of the country so that we can scrutinise the situation and see what’s going”

• 7^th January – press conferences on the vaccine rollout begin

3. 10^th January – Called for more support for councils, citing the PM’s promise to do “whatever is necessary” to support local authorities – “he needs to make good on that promise”

• 17^th December – Government announces a £2.2 billion funding boost for local councils across England in 2021

4. 11^th January – Called for families to be protected from council tax rises

• 17^th December – Government announces £670 million extra funding “to enable councils to continue reducing council tax bills for those least able to pay, including households impacted financially by the pandemic.”

5. 11^th January – Called for an extension on the eviction ban, “That’s why I’m calling on the Government today to put families first during this lockdown… extending the ban on evictions”

• 8^th January – Government extends the ban on evictions, changing the law to continue the ban until 22^nd February, with no evictions expected until 8^th March at the earliest

Sir Keir isn’t performing as Captain Hindsight anymore, he’s playing a game of political ‘Simon Says’…

UPDATE 28/01: Make that seven times – Labour is today calling demanding an extension to free school meals during February half term. They should have been listening to the PM’s statement yesterday when he said “As we are extending the period of remote learning beyond the middle of February, I can confirm that the government will prolong arrangements for providing free school meals for those eligible children not in school”.