FT - can’t stand the author but some
good points here.
Sorry format
Critics were lukewarm about the second Oasis album, released 30 autumns ago. When it sold tens of millions, and some of the tracks became auxiliary national anthems in Britain, the press did the natural thing. It overcorrected. It gave five-star reviews to the band’s grandiose mess of a third album. In striving to redeem a mistake, people made the equal and opposite one. Since the summer of 2024, I have wondered how Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour party was elected with so little scrutiny. One theory is overcorrection. Starmer was trashed as a no-hoper during his first 18 months or so as leader. When the polls turned his way, those doubters were flummoxed, like the indie dweebs who couldn’t tell that Don’t Look Back in Anger would enchant a nation. The result was the softest treatment of an incoming government I can remember. There are two things that readers should do now. First, ignore anyone who talks about Labour being a “disappointment”. This government is exactly as bad as it was always going to be. Second, expect things to deteriorate from here. The people who lead the government are unfit and their internal critics are worse. As the latter are gaining strength, it follows that Britain will be in ever less capable hands until 2029. Take the chancellor Rachel Reeves: one of life’s triers, but never cut out for this particular office at this particular time. At next week’s Budget, she will announce a second round of tax rises, which she said would never come. She has spent 2025 fanning and then dousing speculation about certain levies, such as higher income tax, with predictable effects on confidence. (A Tory who behaved like this would be called a vandal.) Most workplaces, including newspapers, contain staff who are out of their depth but survive because the boss is too embarrassed to fire them. They just tend not to be the second-highest person in the organisation. What can be said in her defence? That she is braver than her leader. There were warnings about Starmer’s character in opposition. He let others stand up to Jeremy Corbyn, whom he served in shadow cabinet. He let others fight woke dogma, until the tide turned against it. Even now, he makes liberal use of human shields. Notice that every crisis for Starmer quickly becomes a conversation about his underlings. His then chief of staff Sue Gray used to be the problem. Now it is her successor Morgan McSweeney. What rotten luck the prime minister has with recruitment. The British are having to relearn a lesson that Theresa May should have fixed in their minds forever. Don’t assume that uncharismatic people have hidden depths. Being boring does not make someone a “technocrat”. One can be dull and inept. If Starmer is both, how can things get worse? Look at his challengers. This is how the coming years are likely to play out. Whenever Starmer is in trouble, Andy Burnham will say something nebulously crowd-pleasing and flash those sad eyes at Labour members. (A part of me wants the Greater Manchester mayor to become prime minister, just to see him run a national budget.) Angela Rayner will offer a similar northern-left alternative. Both have prestige in a middle-class and southern party that is touchy about its estrangement from the industrial regions. To survive this dissent, Starmer will tilt left. Or the left will topple him. Even if a relative right-ist such as Wes Streeting or Shabana Mahmood becomes leader, the internal logic of this government is now towards more fiscal concessions and less public sector reform, barring a 1976-style shock in which markets force Labour’s hand. The central event of the government so far was Starmer’s retreat from welfare reform last summer. It established the precedent that backbenchers and grassroots can morally blackmail him. Look at their influence. As unemployment rises, a sensible prime minister would ditch his plans for more red tape on hiring. But he can’t, in case the unions ditch him. In a stagnant economy, the government should pursue growth at all costs. The priority of its MPs is to increase child benefit claims. All of this and more was foreseeable. Starmer exorcised the hard left but the soft left are more numerous and not much less deluded. If you trusted these people to unleash Britain’s economic potential, I don’t know what to say to you. For 14 years, Labour’s analysis of the country’s problems was to repeat a proper noun (“Tories”) and an abstract noun (“austerity”). The two words were said with a tone of incantation, like rote-learned scripture. It was easier than thinking. It was easier than questioning a state that hasn’t balanced a budget since around the millennium. So, while anger is a sensible reaction to the government, surprise isn’t. There is not enough contempt in the kingdom for what the Conservatives did on Brexit, planning, unfunded tax cuts and what we might call the moral tone of public life. But none of this ever added up to a case for Labour, let alone a landslide. Its ruling duo are inadequate and remain preferable to their likeliest usurpers. Britain has another three years or more to reflect on this Hobson’s choice. To capture the bleakness of the situation, and its potential to deteriorate, I will leave you with my considered verdict on the chancellor. Reeves is honour-bound to quit, and I hope she doesn’t. [email protected]