The absence of a really clear political project at the heart of the Labour leadership makes it much harder for the attack unit to do its job.

Hello and welcome to Political Fix, your essential insider guide to Westminster from the Financial Times with me, Lucy Fisher.

You heard there, Stephen Bush, talking about the toothlessness of the Labour Party, more from him later.

Coming up, it's almost time to wave goodbye to the British summer. Could Rishi Sunak also be waving off some of his cabinet?

We'll share the latest reshuffle rumours. Plus cars, whiskey and work visas, what will it take to cement a UK India trade deal?

And the Trump Circus gathers momentum in the US. As 2024 is shaping up to be a big year for elections on both sides of the pond, we ask, what does the US race mean for the UK?

Joining me to discuss all of that are FT columnist Stephen Bush. Hi, Stephen. Hi, Lucy. And the FT's political editor George Parker. Hello, Lucy.

So, George, firstly, you kick us off. What's been your moments of the week?

Well, it's a story I've sort of been interested in for a while, which this question about when are we actually ever going to start conducting checks on food products coming into Britain from the EU?

Of course, these were introduced on products going the other way back in 2021, and much the fury of British farmers who feel they're operating on an uneven playing field.

These checks haven't been implemented in the UK. And so we discovered this week that for the fifth time, the checks going to be delayed, they're going to be introduced now.

We think sometime around April 2024, some listeners will notice that's quite near to a general election.

Fair enough, skepticism about whether these checks will actually ever be introduced this side of the election.

And there are some people like Jacob Riesmog is saying, fine, leave the doors open. European food is pretty well regulated, but certainly doesn't sound like taking back control.

Stephen, how about you?

So mine is the Office for National Statistics releasing a report of what it basically thinks is a superior measure of core inflation, showing that core inflation actually has now started to fall.

And obviously, for reasons we've discussed many, many a time, that inflation target, I think it's going to be both really huge in terms of the pain for households.

But in terms of the mood music around the government, I think really is the kind of target to watch, as it were.

For me, this week, I have to say, it has been the spectacular death as we understand it of Yvgeny Pregosian, the curbside hot dog seller who rose to become the Kremlin caterer.

And then, of course, the head of one of the biggest private militias in the world before being literally blown out of the sky.

Not quite connected to British politics, but if I can shoehorn that in one relevant link, I too have been writing about it this week only in the sense that the British government is about to prescribe the Wagner group as a terrorist organization as I understand it.

I can't say loosely that it's one of those stories which, I mean, obviously, has geopolitical ramifications, but from a journalistic point of view, it's the narrative arc.

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