LABOUR PARTY

ELECTED to office less than three months ago, the Labour Party has begun its annual conference – this year in Liverpool – already weighed down by incumbency: rows over gifts from wealthy party donors and tickets to football games as well as rifts about Keir Starmer’s chief of staff’s pay are feeding into the public disquiet. These come amidst the burden of government in difficult economic circumstances. Coupled with the low public trust and the needless surplus of gloom, the political honeymoon period for Labour is well and truly over. We knew change was high up on the political agenda for Labour, but since day one of government it has set out with the explicit objective of dampening expectations of how soon change might come. The gloom is palpable.

There is a degree of urgency for Starmer to recalibrate the mood with a sense of optimism and purpose. He needs to give the country reasons to be glad of a Labour government in ways that go beyond relief at no longer being governed by Tory rule. New governments often come to power blaming the last for what it has inherited. The PM has given the nation an unvarnished account of the dismal legacy left for Labour; a bleak audit that covers a record of political and financial maladministration.

Conservative ministers, driven by ideological fanaticism and self-serving cynicism, squandered energy and vital resources on ill-conceived, unworkable policies. Public services were starved of the means by which they could effectively operate. With that in mind, it is easy to see that Sir Keir has a difficult job because the country is in a dire mess. Putting things right will take time. Nevertheless, that morose message has been bitterly soured by a performance of fiscal discipline, delivered without a hint of uplifting accompaniment.

The prime minister says things will get worse before they get better. His chancellor, Rachel Reeves, cites “black holes” in the budget, withdraws winter fuel payments for all but the poorest pensioners, and continually pledges that there is more pain to come. Ms Reeves’ argument is that government departments under the Conservatives overspent by £22bn in the budget and that deep cuts are needed to compensate. This is a self-imposed restriction that stems from ill-advised fiscal rules. The force of that constraint, and the zeal with which it is applied as austerity across Whitehall, is also a matter of political choice.

The government’s strategists argue that adherence to Tory spending limits was a “non-negotiable” condition of persuading the public that Labour could be trusted on the economy. Possibly, possibly not. There is no way to test the counterfactual scenario, where Ms Reeves could have fought the election with a wider range of tax-raising options still open. However, the decision to lean into unpopularity so hard, so fast, and without a countervailing narrative of hope looks like very poor strategic judgment.

Labour’s election manifesto contained plenty of reasons to expect a substantial departure from a grim status quo. A marked progressive shift was promised in the areas of workers’ rights, a robust commitment to net zero, improved relations with the rest of Europe and, perhaps most significantly, readiness to embrace a more interventionist model of economic management, including public ownership of utility companies.

The Starmerite script contains rather too much fiscal conservatism, but the hope on the left of the party is that there is a social democratic framework at its core. That would express the opposite of the Tory conviction that government’s main function is to facilitate market supremacy and then get out of the way. Many Labour MPs, activists, and Labour supporting people in the country will feel unsure which of the two strands – cringing continuity or bold departure – will dominate. Keir Starmer’s task is to answer in terms that give hope of meaningful change to come.

BRITAIN

NOW he’s safely in office, Sir Keir Starmer continues to reveal his real manifesto – attacks on pensioners, higher fuel bills, and a whole array of excuses for other flops and errors that he has not even made yet. With apparent gusto, he will tell us shortly that things will get worse before they get better and that he will not shy away from tough and unpopular decisions.

Such rhetoric has often been a favourite warning from Prime Ministers nearing their end of time in office, usually an attempt to claim that their difficulties will one day produce a happy outcome. But it is highly unusual for newly elected leaders with a full five years ahead of them to use language like this. If he starts in this way, what will it be like a year hence?

This is a government in trouble within weeks of being elected to office.

Beguiled by Labour’s legendary skills at spin and planning, many expected and hoped that Sir Keir would ride smoothly into power. It has been anything but. Apart from proposing to concrete over the Green Belt, abandoning any attempt to control illegal migration, splurging taxpayers’ money on extravagant public sector pay claims, and mauling independent schools with VAT, there has been little for the PM to boast about. The chief turn of phrase of his opening few weeks, along with that of his Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, has been: “The Tories left a huge black hole in the national finances.” Labour claims that the outgoing Conservative government left a £22bn black hole that Labour has exposed following an audit of the books when they took over. Anyone who understands economics, whether Labour supporting or not, will know the claim to be untrue.

Absurdly, and in a similar vein, Labour has even started blaming the previous government for the recent violent disorders. No doubt the Tories have not been as tough as their voters would have liked on law and order, but Labour, for more than half a century has been the party of soft sentencing and politically correct policing, can hardly blame the Conservatives for the “cracks in our society”.

This is a government in a mess. The removal of the winter fuel payment to pensioners looks more than ever like a classic political bungle, now made even worse by the ten per cent rise in the energy cap that has just been announced by the energy regulator. It will hit many elderly people hard. Is this what Starmer calls a “government of service”? It increasingly looks like the sort of administration in which the people serve the state, and the state is above our heads in ways that aren’t normally associated with socialism.

Britons can feel the wind blowing and will know that things aren’t right. Expect some heavy hitting changes.