Labour’s popularity tracked the hockey stick when Keir Starmer was leader of the opposition in the last parliament. It dipped badly during his first 18 months, then recovered over the next six months and finally surged in the two years running up to this July’s election. The essential—although not explicitly stated—political argument of his speech yesterday was that the same will happen in this parliament as doom-and-gloom gives way to growth and joy thanks to tough long-term decision-making.
“People said we couldn’t change the party, but we did. People said we wouldn’t win across Britain, but we did. People say we can’t deliver national renewal, but we can and we will,” he said.
“If we take tough long-term decisions now,” he argued, then we will get to the “light at the end of the tunnel… much more quickly.” And the long-term decision he particularly emphasised was “filling that black hole in our public finances”. “We will stabilise our economy, clear out the Tory rot, fix the foundations and deliver the mandate of change.”
As an account of the past, Starmer’s argument is debatable. Labour’s ratings in the last parliament took off when Boris Johnson became mired in Partygate, then surged with Liz Truss and her mini-budget. Sunak never recovered thereafter. Doubtless if Starmer had been a left-wing continuity Corbyn he wouldn’t have benefitted in the same way. But his opponents lost the last election by chronic misgovernment as surely as he won it by changing the Labour party.
The failure of the public services—particularly the NHS—to recover from the Covid crisis was a key factor in the Tory rout. So too was the failure to deal with surging immigration—especially the small boats—after Sunak made “stopping the boats” one of his personal pledges.
Even without Starmer’s doom-and-gloom rhetoric, these problems obviously couldn’t be overcome overnight. But by emphasising that things are continuing to get worse even in the first months of his government, and that this was pretty well inevitable, Starmer is positively inviting further short-term unpopularity for as long as it takes to produce any notable growth and public service improvements. He is also blaming all his short-term unpopularity on the failing state, rather than admitting to any tactical mistakes about, for example, his personal donations and the scrapping of winter fuel payments.
But all this emphasis on a £22bn funding black hole and tough decisions will make it vital that next month’s budget is seen as big and bold. Big in its tax increases and cuts in “non-essential” spending, bold in the difference it and any accompanying reforms will make to the underlying crises of growth and the NHS.
It is hard to see how a budget of big tax increases and spending cuts can be anything other than unpopular. Therefore, it is essential that the next budget raises enough money to help Wes Streeting reduce NHS waiting lists and improve GP and A&E services, so that the government actually deals with the crisis in the NHS and avoids a new wave of austerity.
What of tough long-term decisions elsewhere? The government has made a good start on housing, planning and energy reform, siding with yimbys rather than nimbys on housing targets, wind farms and solar power.
But there isn’t a similarly bold agenda in dealing with the long-term crisis of Brexit, which is perhaps the single biggest obstacle to a long-term transformation in trade and commerce. To “fix the foundations” of the economy, and produce growth and joy by the next election, Starmer will not be able to ignore the Brexit issue for that much longer.
