Never has an opposition leader with ratings as dismal as Keir Starmer’s gone on to win an election. In any other year, his wooden speeches and nebulous agenda would have earned him a place on the long list of Labour losers. But this time, the real question of the election was: who has disappointed voters most? And here the Tories proved hard to beat. Years of talking right and governing left has left them with a record that is the opposite of what was promised. ‘Either I’m delivering for you, or I’m not,’ said Rishi Sunak. It really is that simple, he said. Voters, it seems, agreed.
Conservatives have all summer for their postmortem, but for the government now there is work to do. Having won over the public, Starmer’s next job will be to win over the markets. They rebelled over Liz Truss’s borrow-and-spend agenda – and crushed her in the process. Markets are jittery about the prospect of 28-year-old Jordan Bardella becoming prime minister of France. He has responded by promising to be the model of fiscal restraint. Rachel Reeves is doing likewise, pointing out that she has always pledged to be a cautious chancellor. She must now demonstrate that.
The new government must count economic inclusion – not just social inclusion – as a measure of success
Splurging is impossible, so Labour’s only option is reform. Here, Starmer has more room for manoeuvre than the Tories had. Tackling public services requires political capital, which is harder to come by than borrowed money. If he uses this capital judiciously, he may be able to succeed where the Tories failed. Starmer can dress up reform in left-wing, even class-war language, which is in fact the only way for him to make a success of it. The sooner it is adopted, the more likely it is to work.
The first task is to put aside the fake visions of Britain that were projected in the election campaign and look at the country as it really is. The economy is weighed down not just by excessive taxation but by a welfare state which shamefully keeps 5.6 million people on out-of-work benefits. The direction of travel suggests this already dire situation will become much worse – at great human and economic cost.
The public must be made aware of this situation and a new mission declared, which aims to save lives as well as money. Rather as Sir William Beveridge identified idleness as a ‘giant evil’, a Starmer government must count economic inclusion – not just social inclusion – as a measure of success.
After welfare, he should tackle schools. It was a Labour government that created City Academies, which evolved into the Academy movement, with thousands of independently run schools in the state sector. Starmer can supercharge this policy, extending it to primary schools. Pupil numbers are due to fall sharply because of the low UK birth rate, but a Labour government can announce that it will protect the number of schools and teachers, to promote more choice for pupils.
Next he should address the NHS. Wes Streeting can pose John Reid’s old question: why should only the rich have choices when it comes to healthcare? The right to opt out should be expanded to anyone who is on a waiting list for more than six months, perhaps, or to any child on a dentist’s waiting list for three months.
Streeting can say, as Alan Milburn did, that ‘NHS’ refers to a promise to patients that they will be cared for – it is not about which body provides the healthcare. A Labour government, he can say, stands with the many not the few – the users of public services, not the providers.
This same refrain – the many, not the few– can be used to moderate the net-zero agenda. Simple calculations should be made: what is the current trajectory for UK carbon emissions? How helpful really is it to tax less wealthy sections of the population off the road? How many thousands die every year in ‘excess winter deaths’ – and how many fewer would do so if energy were more affordable? A simple calculation about outcomes would show that net zero is taking money from low-income households and handing it to green lobbyists.
One mistake Labour politicians in particular make is to assume that policies will be judged by the signals they send, how virtuous they sound in speeches. But governments have more electoral success when they emphasise results; and truly progressive politics must genuinely deliver the greatest good for the greatest number of people.
The Tories had a chance to do this, and in the end they blew it spectacularly. We will now find out if Starmer can do better. The prospect does not look great, given the quality of the ideas he has had up to this point, but his campaign slogan, ‘Country first, party second’, was promising. It rightly acknowledges the tensions between national and party interests. Perhaps Starmer is beginning to realise that a reform agenda is his only path out of the current mess.
Many people dismissed out of hand the idea that Starmer could be a great prime minister. Now he has a chance to prove them wrong – and the opportunity to be the reformer this country so desperately needs.
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