Like a midwinter’s morning, the new dawn broke with a shrug. Labour’s historic landslide, a mere seven weeks old, already has a greyish pallor, opening the door for another party disciplined enough to shine brighter.
That ‘Boring Keir Starmer’ was pure optics was clear to anyone with an eye on the quiet radicalism of Labour’s policy announcements in opposition. In public, stability, security and responsibility. In private, the foaming fanaticism of a party that was in the darkness for too long, promising ‘new deals’ for anyone or anything.
Such boldness is necessary given our predicament. The brokenness of Britain was the reason voters gave the Tories the boot. Fixing it requires a break from the status quo. Starmer was correct to target the country’s anaemic economic growth. So much of our present discontent – cratering public services, crumbling infrastructure and historic tax rates – is rooted in the fact that real average weekly earnings are lower than in 2008, and £272 below the pre-Financial Crisis trend. Debates on immigration are a distraction.
Since sunrise on 5th July, we’ve begun to see what these new deals entail. It has been deeply disappointing. Supercomputers scrapped, unions paid off with inflation-busting packages with no corresponding commitments of productivity improvements, only an invitation to come back for more, repeals of strike laws, threatening to slow Britain to a 1970s-style halt, and new housing targets, so unambitious that the country’s capital had its target cut.
With the country either on holiday, enjoying a summer of sport, or making the most of their supposed new ‘right to log off’, Starmer’s new Labour government hasn’t faced the scrutiny that this combination of unforced errors deserves. But his reckoning will come. You cannot declare growth a “national mission” and then undermine the conditions for it. Ed Miliband expending political capital overruling overzealous locals to build green infrastructure is welcome, but that alone won’t cut it.
Predictably, Starmer is asking the British public to be patient. “We will do the hard work to root out 14 years of rot … [but] it’s going to be painful … to accept short term pain for long term good.” Such was the hatred for the late Conservative government, unparalleled in modern times, that this will resonate for a while.
But there will come a time, late in his term, when the public’s good grace ends. They will look around and see that the man who promised them growth, who promised them a better life, has failed to deliver it. That the cause was tinkering with the National Planning Policy Framework or ditching the exascale will be irrelevant. After twenty years of comparative decline, watching other countries grow richer, Britain will become tired of being poor.
Having only just wrestled the highest honour of ‘who do you trust most with the economy’ from the Conservatives, Starmer could throw it all away. Ghosts of Labour leaders gone by were haunted by the slogan ‘Labour isn’t working’. The prize for teaching the public that they still don’t is there for the taking.
In the past, one would expect the Conservatives, after a false start or two, to rise to the occasion. But they start this race from unusually far back. Rishi Sunak’s disastrous election result has gutted the Parliamentary party, Liz Truss’ 49-day drive-by in Downing Street obliterated the Conservative’s reputation as the party of economic stability, and austerity, Brexit and the persistent sacrificing of young people at the expense of their older voter base means their situation may be irredeemable.
The other parties face different problems. The Liberal Democrats and Greens are awash with growth-crushing NIMBYs, the latter of which openly oppose growth on a philosophical level. While Reform, despite talking a good game on increasing productivity, will struggle to free itself from the populist cage it has constructed around itself, and, of course, carries baggage that puts them beyond the pale for most.
So, who will rise to the occasion, an existing party or one yet to be formed? Only time will tell. But to beat Starmer, they will have to learn from him. In just five years, he rescued Labour from the grip of Trotskyist feuds with ruthless discipline and serious politics. It’s just a shame Starmer can’t do serious policy as well.
Ben's Blog 