It’s a tricky time for Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves. They’re well ahead in the polls but have little to say on strikes: bankrolled by the unions, they are nevertheless unable to support the cause because of their remorseless mission to prove their political credibility. They need to look sober, sane and sensible: wild spending pledges are out, jettisoned in favour of fiscal restraint.
Having shed themselves of the ideological baggage of the Corbyn years, Labour have instead resorted to often just criticising government policies on the grounds of practicality. Take efforts to crack down on illegal immigration, for instance. Labour knows that such measures are popular: God forbid they be depicted as standing up for free movement of people, as, er, Keir Starmer did in April 2020. The party’s spin doctors have therefore hit upon a brilliant wheeze by describing Tory schemes as simply ‘unworkable’ rather than objecting on the grounds of principle.
And it’s that word ‘unworkable’ that keeps cropping up again and again in the endless comments and press releases by Labour MPs which feature in our national media. Just today, Angela Rayner described plans to clamp down on electoral fraud by requiring voters to prove their identity with a form of photographic identification as ‘unworkable’’ before, er, claiming it would ‘lock millions out of voting.’ How exactly can it be both?
Rayner of course also used that same word ‘unworkable’ to describe the government’s planned minimum service level legislation just four days ago. That came barely a fortnight after first Keir Starmer and then Yvette Cooper used the same buzz word with regards to the Rwanda scheme on 13 and 18 December. Similarly, plans to house asylum seekers in disused holiday parks and fast-track the removal of Albanian migrants on 13 December were also branded ‘unworkable’ by Starmer in the Commons.
It’s not just the big beasts of the Shadow Cabinet who use such language: shadow culture minister Lucy Powell branded the Online Safety Bill ‘unworkable’ in November – the same phrase used by shadow communities secretary Lisa Nandy to describe efforts to allow people to use housing benefit to contribute towards mortgages in June. The then shadow health secretary Jon Ashworth also branded Sajid Javid’s plans to reorganise the NHS as ‘unworkable’ while shadow Home Office minister Holly Lynch argued too that Priti Patel’s immigrations plans were ‘unworkable.’
Will we get a new buzzword in 2023? Or is such a proposal ‘unworkable’ too?
Comments