January 5, 2024 - 7:00am
As Sir Keir Starmer delivered a major speech yesterday, one line leapt out: “I promise this: a politics which treads a little lighter on all our lives.”
It’s a nice turn of phrase — and a superficially attractive offer, too. Who could disagree that politics has been “exhausting” in recent years? And if even the hardened politicos think that, how must the average voter feel?
But in blaming the recent tone of politics on “nationalism and populism”, Starmer is mistaking the symptom for the problem. While it is generally a sign of good political health when the apolitical majority can tune out of current affairs, that is also when institutions and systems of government operate with less scrutiny. Then, problems begin to build up.
Consider the New Labour years. While there were always things to keep journalists occupied, Tony Blair’s time in office was marked (with the obvious exception of Iraq) by a period of broad consensus. Even David Cameron was first elected Tory leader promising to be the “heir to Blair”.
Yet so many of the foundations of the current discontent were laid in that period. The current explosion in house prices can partly be attributed to New Labour’s chronic failure to build, or its demolition of over 100,000 council homes. Likewise, the onset of mass immigration has come after ministers refused to apply transition controls to new EU entrants in 2004.
At the same time, Blair pushed through major changes to our constitution, including devolution and the Supreme Court, with extraordinarily little regard for the long-term consequences. Would it not have been better to have had the controversy then, rather than 10 years down the line?
If Starmer does become prime minister following the election, he will be running a country with myriad problems that the public is perfectly justified in being angry about. Despite feeble boasts from politicians about “growth”, real wages have been stagnant since 2008 and aren’t projected to start rising again until 2028. That’s 20 years of stagnant incomes in the face of rising taxes, increased costs, and now the pressure of inflation.
Energy bills are sky-high because successive governments have failed to build any new power plants. Net Zero has been waved through by MPs with no practical plan to deliver it. People are paying a record share of their post-tax income on rent, and putting off having children because they can’t afford it. One statistic sums things up: for young adults aged 18-34 in 1997, the most common living situation was in a couple, with children. Today, it is living with their parents.
These are all good reasons to be angry. It’s easy for politicians such as Starmer to blame Brexit (or “nationalism”), yet the vote to leave the EU was a seismic shock to the political establishment, and it happened precisely because voters were unhappy with the status quo.
Yesterday, Starmer suggested a return to the business-as-usual complacency that got us into this mess in the first place, whereas Britain needs a government which grasps the scale of the challenge and is prepared to do whatever is necessary to turn things around. That will inevitably mean picking some important battles and, for that matter, a measure of anger. If Starmer isn’t prepared for that, he doesn’t deserve to be prime minister.
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SubscribeHe is the spiritual leader of the new bourgeoisie which crosses parties and prides itself on a shared identity: pro-Europe and concerned with zero-carbon economies first then any notion of social justice that tags along with that i.e. tax the rest to the pips to supply the green revolution.
I’m in the trades and I have an excellent example of punitive Green taxes my local merchant has informed me of that came in at the beginning of the year. So a Conservative initiative. Gas boilers have increased by around £150 each because now any manufacturer who doesn’t sell at least 5% of their total products sales from their renewables line they are subject to a punitive tax levy. Which they are understandably passing on to consumers.
When is someone going to start talking about economic growth and enabling the private sector instead of increased taxes and managed decline??
Wait until you see the penalties imposed on car dealers who fail to sell enough EVs in a few years. That will be real ugly.
Liz Truss had a go but they soon put a stop to that!
Before one can credibly talk of economic growth, one must know something about how it is generated. There is no career politician who knows a thing about that. In looking at elected officials, what is the most common field of training among them? It has nothing to do with building a business, understanding the implications of taxes and regulation, making payroll, etc.
The plan is: grab the golden goose by the neck and drown it in slurry.
In commerce firms tend to differentiate their products. Microsoft says buy PCs, they’re cheaper and you can run more stuff them. Apple says, ours are more efficient and look cooler.
Then you pays your money and you takes your choice. After a few years fed up either with a Mac or PC, you might choose the other brand.
It seemed to me that, in the olden days, there was a fairly clear choice. Certainly in the 80s between Thatcher and Michael Foot. Moreover, and maybe I have my rose tinted specs on again, if the other lot got in, you’d shrug your shoulders, moan a bit but accept the result.
There seems to be as much political division within parties as between them, so what the leaders of the parties come up with is essentially an offer to manage things better than the other party. They don’t offer us a vision. Unlike buying laptops, we don’t have a choice.
I wouldn’t mind if the Labour Party was Corbynite and got voted in, as long as the Tories had been confidently pushing a small government, free market model and the Liberal Democrats had been the only ones pushing the centrist vision. You pays your money and you takes your choice.
It’s even worse than that. I remember hearing some Labour shadow minister under Ed Miliband talking about their “retail offer” for the 2015 election. And they still go on using this impersonal business speak (which they probably don’t really understand). They are quite literally all talk.
The 33 terms article a couple of days ago really nailed this with the item about “problem sellers”:
Problem-solvers take an issue and cut it up into small, solvable chunks. Problem-sellers do the opposite: bundling various remotely-connected issues together into one big, scary problem. The consequence is that problem-sellers make problems look insurmountable when they’re not.
Almost all politicians are problem sellers. And not people you would employ or trust to actually solve problems. In all parties.
And yes, I also greatly prefer the appalling but authentic Corbyn to the vacuousness of New Labour and its offspring.
“They don’t offer us a vision” So true!
The speech was pure Blair, in tone and content. I wonder who wrote it? I’m sure it will have been reviewed by the Blair Institute staffers who now surround Sir Keir. Like Cassandra I will keep saying: Vote Starmer get Blair.
That of course may help him. He doesn’t have Blair’s charisma and you forget Blair won 3 times easily. People may just welcome a bit of what the late 90s early 2000s gave us – improving public services and c3% annual growth.
Or maybe it happened because voters wanted to leave the EU.
We often see variants of this. Leaving the EU was some inchoate cry of despair, a blind reaction against some generalised political malaise that people never really understood. After all, how could anyone in their right mind ever want to leave?
It’s the polite way of implying that the winning side didn’t know what they were voting for.
There seems to be some unspoken/hidden message around so much political posturing (probably all over the world, but I speak from the UK).
On Brexit; all the intelligent people voted remain (so if I vote remain I am clever), only thickos voted leave.
On the trans self-ID; caring and kind people support this, so you are cruel if you disagree.
On Green agenda; if you do not fully support this then you do not care about the planet or your grandchildren.
It is very silly Simon, I agree.
We voted to leave because we felt that the British people should have the final say over all the laws they live under. Hardly a novel concept!
In particular we were exercised about EU immigration laws which enshrined an open border to half a billion Europeans – many from very low wage economies.
We believed that the risks of leaving were exaggerated by the Europhiles and this indeed proved to be the case.
What is strange is that the Tories didn’t act on the mandate to reduce immigration to a level below which existed during the last 20 years of our EU membership. This is what most Leave voters expected and it would have helped them to stay in power.
“We voted to leave because we felt that the British people should have the final say over all the laws they live under.”
Hmmm… I think you reveal the real reason “we” voted to leave, in your final paragraph.
Oh people knew what they thought they were voting for – a better politics, less North-South divide, less immigration, and something a bit vague but felt intuitive called Taking Back Control. They trusted all that would come to pass as a result.
Unfortunately life is more complex, and in many ways they were completely hoodwinked by charlatans and deceivers who once the fake-excuse was removed would flounder. And so it has proven.
The things they/we wanted are all still legit. What we’ve learnt is the EU being blamed for all these turned out to be erroneous.
Your audit on the horrors visited by the EU/Blair revolution falls way short. Very few are aware of the long term destruction caused by Brown to our financial system. The crisis that felled Truss had its seeds in foolish boring regulatory changes to accountancy & pensions. This forced pension funds to charge out of equities and into bonds. Result? The LSE and enterprise has been starved of investment and the inevitable uptick in interest rates after 15 years of Zero Insanity triggered a 65bn LDI derivatives panic. Ditto Brown’s appalling earlier assault on savings with his dividend grab. As with his tax credit system which warped the labour market, the EU-inspired Regulatory Mania of these ignorant Progressives has wrought untold systemic harm to our financial market, just as much as the more damning visible chaos in our energy and housing markets.
WM you are back on your hobby horse blaming folks who haven’t been in power for 14+ years. That’s a lifetime my friend and the Right had more than ample time to course correct. Just screaming about the distant past doesn’t inform or help with the future that much either.
On your point about Pensions – a more interesting point – there is something in the investment decisions our Funds seem to take that kills the potential of UK capitalism. Would you agree we need to change things so more incentives/penalties in how they invest? I think here we may find more common ground as something seems v skewed and not helping us. Maybe something Trussites should have done first in a chase for growth?
“a politics which treads a little lighter on all our lives” is code for “a politics where incompetent unelected technocrats run your lives, DEI is enforced by the private sector and supranational institutions and quangos will hold more power than ever before”.
When govt conveniently forgets that it works for the people and not the other way around, the people tend to notice. Here in the States, what began with an idea of limited central power and most decision-making to be done at the local and state levels has become the largest federal govt in human history. And it keeps growing, while often failing in its core duties. But, sure; populism is the problem.
I’d argue you may be focused on the wrong villain AL. Isn’t it the role of big money in US politics that acts against the so called ‘people’ much more?
What we need is tough, radical action until we get this country back on the rails. But try selling that to the electorate.
Great comment piece. Thank you.. The reckless, “things can only get better” Utopian shortsightedness of the Blair, Brown and Cameron administrations are directly responsible for the various slow motion economic, social and governmental train crashes we are now experiencing.
And how do you explain the last 9 years then? Pace of deterioration picked up hasn’t it? Plenty of time for a course correction if that’s what was needed. You sure you aren’t just in the game of deflection?
Groan…another pundit who seems to have been in a coma last 16 years and wakes up thinking Blair et al only just left office. Doh, who’s been in charge last 14 years?
This just underlines how unreflective the Right truly is on it’s mistakes and contradictions the last 14years. It would rather vent about Blair, and no doubt some other Paper Monster excuses, than properly reflect on it’s own performance, what is structurally wrong with UK capitalism and other crucial lessons we must learn. Grow up for goodness sake.
As for Starmer wanting a period of less divisive politics, well he’s where the majority are isn’t he. And he’s not going around blaming Brexit, he’s not that daft. Although he and many, including some key Brexiteers, full know it’s been a shambles.
“And if even the hardened politicos think that, how must the average voter feel?”
Starmer and his team will have run some focus groups etc etc, and will be cynically appealing to disaffected Tories.
To fake sincerity is a really useful skill he has.
The speech is well written. But merely not being Tory isn’t enough. There’s no ethos or novelty. Nothing to love or link with.
I don’t plan to vote. Likewise my whole family