Sir Keir is reportedly promising he will never strike a coalition deal with the SNP to enter Downing Street, and plans to make it clear he’d rather be in a minority government than work with Sturgeon. According to the Guardian, Starmer is keen to get on the front foot over the Tories’ “coalition of chaos” attacks by ruling out any concessions to the SNP, and will pledge to offer a procedural guarantee against a deal – including rejecting a referendum – in a motion at the party’s conference. Because as everyone knows, a pledge from Sir Keir is worth its weight in gold.

This comes as Boris himself laid bare the Tories’ strategy for the next election. In an interview with the FT’s Seb Payne earlier this spring, the PM said:

“Do you want a sensible ‘One Nation’ Conservative party? This is a One Nation government that has done some fantastic things already and we’ll do a lot more. Or do you want Labour propped up by the SNP? We’re going back to that choice.”

Earlier this week, Matt Hancock said essentially the same thing in a Mail op-ed. Given there’s still a vacancy for the party chairmanship, he was probably hoping Boris was paying attention.

Well, it worked so well for Ed Miliband…