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Good morning. Keir Starmer appears to be heading for a repudiation by Labour party members. Kemi Badenoch definitely has been by Danny Kruger, one of her own former frontbenchers, who defected to Reform yesterday. Some thoughts on both of those in today's note.

Lucy Powell is forecast to win the deputy leadership election, with 61 per cent of the vote to Bridget Phillipson's 39 per cent, according to a new poll. The LabourList/Survation poll is not the most reliable of the various gauges of Labour party sentiment. At the last leadership election it underestimated Keir Starmer's support in 2020 by ten points, though that would not be enough to change the result if repeated this time.

The LabourList readership is consistently both to the left of the overall Labour membership and more engaged with politics. That last part is very important, because they are more likely therefore to have absorbed that Phillipson is the preferred choice of the Labour leadership and are less likely to vote for her as a result. As one LabourList respondent puts it:

"The leadership needs to be made aware how unhappy the members are with the direction of government and how it's functioning. I like Bridget Phillipson and think she would make a great Deputy Leader. But as she is seen to be the leadership['s] candidate I cannot support her in this contest."

So it is too early to tell whether or not Phillipson's own high favourability among Labour members is going to overcome the negative mark of being Starmer's preferred pick, though I still think it is more likely than not that Powell will win comfortably.

What is not too early to tell is the impact of the latest Conservative-to-Reform defection. Danny Kruger has become the first sitting Conservative MP to defect directly to Reform (Lee Anderson, who defected in the last parliament, had been suspended by Rishi Sunak before he joined Reform).

Seen one way, it's good news for Reform: Kruger is not saying "I am leaving because my politics has changed", he is saying "I am leaving because I think the Tory party has failed, is dying and is being replaced by Reform". This is exactly the message of which the latter needs to convince people if it is to maintain its poll lead and enter government.

For Kemi Badenoch, it is yet another blow to her strategy of "take the Conservatives to the right, don't say anything substantial to criticise Reform other than to claim it is actually a leftwing party", though frankly so much of her own party is now talking past her anyway, so I don't think it matters all that much on that front.

Does it risk making people think that Reform is identical to the party it thinks failed so badly in office from 2019 to 2024? No, I don't think so: as with Tony Blair and David Cameron's rebranding of their parties, I think "a bunch of Conservatives plus Nigel Farage" lands differently enough among the public at large that Reform will still look pretty new and distinctive, unless it was to take in a significant figure from the Conservative party's past, like Liz Truss. For a number of reasons that is unlikely to happen.

But it is not without risks. Kruger is a strict religious conservative of a type that British politics has few of these days. His defection sharpens the impression that Reform's tent is smaller than the Conservative party's at its peak, when it was big enough to span a wide spectrum of politics. Reform is really betting an awful lot on the idea that the Labour government will not turn itself around -- though admittedly, that bet doesn't look that risky right now.

I went to see the opening night of the Polish Jazz Festival and had an absolutely lovely time. There are some great acts that still have tickets at time of writing, though annoyingly I will be at Labour conference then.

It was great to see the Marcin Wasilewski Trio alongside Emma Rawicz. It was a terrific performance and also a really clever way to illustrate the connections between British and Polish jazz scenes.

Danny Kruger's bet on Reform deals blow to Tories