For the past few years, the TrotsApp crowd have been trying to push the ‘Preston Model’ – Preston Council’s Corbynite version of community wealth-building – as the antidote to all of Labour’s woes. John McDonnell claims it “has been and must continue to be at the heart of Labour’s economic model”. Aaron Bastani says it “needs to be rolled out everywhere in the UK”. Owen Jones calls it a “bold policy offer“. With all these ringing endorsements, it’s a mystery why Starmer hasn’t mentioned it once…

The Legatum Institute’s UK Prosperity Index might explain why: it shows that the Preston council area has plummeted down its league table by more than 100 places, with the city’s ‘investment environment’ score (measuring the level of capital available for investment) among the lowest in the whole country. Overall, the city is now less prosperous than it was a decade ago. Who could’ve guessed?

It turns out even Preston’s own Labour MP Sir Mark Hendrick did. Speaking to the Lancashire Post, Hendrick laid into the council’s absurd policies, saying:

“It’s all very well saying that the Preston Model is bringing in millions of pounds into the city. That is not quite the reality that I see […] we can’t go around pretending everything is all right.”

Even so, the Labour left are still trying to sell the Preston Model as “a lesson” for the party by claiming Preston’s council results were some kind of thumping victory. The only problem is the Conservatives actually picked up two seats in those elections, with Labour making no gains on their previous result. If the Preston Model is so brilliant, you’d have thought they’d storm it…