Labour’s reverse Schlieffen plan

Plus: Ukraine is wounded but confident

Jul 13, 2026

The Schlieffen plan was an infamous blueprint for battle, according to which Germany would fight a war on two fronts to knock out both France and Russia before they could gang up on it. First proposed in 1905, when it was finally implemented in the First World War, it didn’t quite pan out as hoped.

But as Ben Ansell writes in his latest column, Labour in government has thus far been pursuing a “reverse Schlieffen plan” for the party “to get simultaneously attacked from left and right with the hope of—well, perhaps victory on points.” Morgan McSweeney’s strategy of hardening Labour’s policy on immigration has alienated many progressive voters, enabling the Greens and Liberal Democrats to make incursions, while Reform voters remain unmoved.

Andy Burnham seems to think he can square this circle by delivering more place-based initiatives for left-behind areas. But Ansell warns that existing schemes have not stopped beneficiaries turning toward Reform, just as the biggest recipients of European Union funding still voted for Brexit.

Speaking of failed military strategies, four years after Vladimir Putin launched Russia’s disastrous war in Ukraine, his troops are still bogged down—and as analyst Mykola Bielieskov recently told Jen Stout, “this is the most confident Ukraine has been for years”. Still, writes Stout, who is back in our pages with a dispatch from a Kyiv under ballistic missile attack, “that doesn’t mean that the war is getting easier”.

Another figure beating a hasty retreat after an ill-fated campaign is broadcaster Iain Dale, who briefly ran for Conservative preselection for the seat of Tunbridge Wells in 2024, before abandoning his tilt after footage emerged of him saying he did not like living there. At least his broadcasting talents won’t be wasted. On today’s episode of Media Confidential, he tells Alan and Lionel what he thinks of his employer LBC—and its less pluralistic rival, GB News.

As always, send your thoughts on today’s edition to ben.clark@prospectmagazine.co.uk. I’m sure you’ll have plenty—the Venn diagram of Prospect readers and world war history buffs is a near perfect circle.