Keir Starmer now needs to start sketching out a Labour platform of government that is more than just saying, we are not the Tories
Source - Daily Telegraph 16/09/22
Politics is necessarily and rightly in the sidings just now, awaiting a suitable time following the late Queen’s funeral when it will re-emerge, get back on track and begin the long run-up to the next general election.
Appropriately enough, that long campaign will kick off in a frenetic way, with a mini budget on Friday, September 23, followed immediately by Labour’s annual conference in Liverpool and the Conservatives’ gathering the following week. It’s almost as if the political melodrama of the summer, culminating in Boris Johnson’s removal from office, then followed by the Queen’s death, has not only cleansed the political pallet of the electorate but has reset the battlefield itself. On one side at least.
Barely a week ago, Britain had a female head of state and a male prime minister. In two short days that was reversed. This feels like a new page, a pivotal moment in our political story. The question is whether the two main parties can rise to the challenge of presenting visions fresh enough to meet the country’s new expectations. More of the same just won’t cut it.
Much to her opponents’ uneasiness, Liz Truss has enjoyed a better start than expected, despite her relaunch of the government being somewhat knocked off course by events of the last week. At least for now, she seems to have brought a clear philosophy back to government, a philosophy that, however opposed it might be in some quarters, is at least recognisable. It differs from the politics of the previous regime in that it is distinctly Conservative: small state, low tax, less nanny statism.
We’ll see how it goes in the medium and longer term. You have to admire the chutzpah of a new chancellor floating the idea of scrapping the EU-wide cap on bankers’ bonuses in order to attract more financial talent to the city of London. As one political reporter commented, it’s as if Truss is embracing anti-populism. Yet, setting aside the risk of critical headlines, the motivation and long-termism embraced by Kwasi Kwarteng is at least clear and sound. In a post-Brexit world, there is much to be gained in making London the world’s most attractive capital in which to conduct financial business.
As for the so-called war on obesity, the PM will enjoy no shortage of adulation from many in her party for sticking up for the rights of people to make their own choices about what lifestyle they choose to pursue and what they choose to eat. There’s that word again: “choose”. We’ll be hearing more of that in the months ahead.
Personally, I have no objection to having calorie counts on restaurant menus, provided I’m still allowed to order whatever I want. But there may be some political gains ahead for a party that maintains the truth that we are each of us responsible for our own diet and our own size; much as I’d like to blame the government (the Scottish one, preferably) for my own weight, I must accept that no one forces me to eat pizza or Mars Bars; those are my choices, made by an adult with the full knowledge of the consequences. To assume that other, mostly poorer citizens have no such agency strikes me as unforgivably patronising.
And what is the Labour Party’s response to all of this? More to the point, must we limit our expectations to no more than that – a response?
Keir Starmer, according to the polls, still looks on course to be headed to Number 10; no other Labour leader since Tony Blair has enjoyed such a long and consistent poll lead. That in itself is an impressive achievement, and the fact that some on his party’s Left are agitating for his removal speaks more to their determination never to be reconciled to an electable Labour Party than anything else.
What worries Labour strategists is that the arrival of Liz Truss in Number 10 has still to filter through to the electorate. After an internal contest in which she was patronised and ridiculed by both her own party and the opposition, she had much work to do to prove that she is a substantial politician with a unique vision for government. Our national mourning has served to delay, if not neuter completely, that fresh start for the government.
But in the next week or two, as politics returns to normal (or our best guess at what “normal” looks like) we will be hearing much more from the prime minister and her ministers and will be able to flesh out what her vision actually is. The important thing to bear in mind is that, whether we agree with it or not, Truss does have a vision. She is an ideologue, which comes with advantages as well as disadvantages.
It may not be enough for Labour simply to play the same old tune on its one-note guitar, that the Tories only care about the rich, that everything they say and do must be opposed for opposition’s sake. Oh, and let’s have a windfall tax on the energy companies.
The economy, of course, may be the government’s downfall, with or without the help of the Labour Party, although the latter will be the chief beneficiary of such a circumstance. But oppositions have come to grief more than once by waiting for recessions and inflation to do the job they’re meant to do. For example, if the government successfully tackles the problem of the costly link between electricity prices and global gas prices, Labour, which has said little on the issue, will find that no one wants to hear from them anyway.
The bottom line is that Labour needs now to start forming a platform for government, not just for opposition. And, like Truss, Starmer needs to develop a philosophy, an ideology that says much more than “We will not be the Conservatives”. For now, that seems to be all he has. And poll lead or not, it just isn’t enough.
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