“Despite the impressive parliamentary majority, the odds are not brilliant. Starmer came in with a historically low popular vote. After Tory austerity, after Covid, the “social rot” he identified in his recent Downing Street rose garden speech is pungent and still spreading. The spending challenge is intense. Demography and Brexit are against him.
So already, as he must have noticed recently, is most of the media, both old and new. On the street, memories are short, patience shorter still. The Prime Minister hasn’t yet shown himself able to grab the nation’s attention in a helpful way. He has made one strong “here’s the bad news” speech but he needs to be a better storyteller, to convey his sense of purpose and hope.
That said, there are reasons for optimism. As the autumn political season starts with a flurry of activity from all departments, this is a good moment to assess the new government’s progress so far. I want to pick out four crucial areas: the economy, law and order, personal reputation, and polling or popularity. In each case, the key theme is authority.”
“Communicating this point is vital – but the first problem is right there. Britain had the fastest growing economy in the G7 in the first half of the year; inflation is 2 per cent, leading to the Bank of England cutting interest rates at the beginning of August; unemployment is only marginally above the G7 average, and much lower than, say, in France. We have our economic problems, God knows, but it’s not exactly Desolation Island.
The truth is, to properly sell the story of its genuinely difficult inheritance and therefore its unpleasant decisions to come, Labour needs far more precision and explanation. Its problem is real. But fundamentally, it is a problem of expectation.
British voters still expect a full-fat, modern, generous welfare state; a <a class="break-all" href="https://www.newstatesman.com/tag/keir-starmerwww.newstatesman.com/tag/nhs" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">National Health Service able to respond to an ageing population in a timely way; a modern and inclusive education system, geared to a rapidly changing economy; and a benefits system that keeps children out of destitution. All this, and we now want a modern national defence for dangerous times. Year upon year of governments’ heedless reductions of the state have brought us to a point everybody understands.
But we don’t want to pay for that stronger, more sustaining state with higher taxes or by working harder. For decades we’ve been told we don’t need to. It’s true that after Covid, and after the energy shock of the Ukraine war, we are close to the all-time 1948 height of tax revenue; but overall taxation here is average, coming between the higher-tax Europeans and the lower-taxed Americans.”