Keir Starmer’s first 100 days haven’t been great, but it’s the second 100 days that matter more, particularly the budget at the end of this month.
The real problem with the last three months isn’t that the government made mistakes—but rather that it did very little at all. The media and Westminster became consumed by the internal organisation of Number 10, the black hole of £22bn and a few small policies (means-testing the £200 winter fuel payment for pensioners, VAT on private school fees and handing over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius) because there was so little else to focus on.
Where the government has acted boldly, it had no trouble getting positive headlines. Ed Miliband got plenty of coverage for his big investment in renewable energy: ditto Wes Streeting with his doctors’ pay settlement and Angela Rayner for her new housing targets.
But for the most part it has so far been a government of the status quo, with only planned changes, such as rail nationalisation, that haven’t been linked to any big improvements in infrastructure or services that the public actually care about. And plenty of promises of policy reviews which may or may not lead to substantive changes—in many years’ time—in state schools, colleges, prisons and social care, among other things.
On the huge and crucial issue of Europe, Starmer has cross-crossed the continent and the Atlantic in personal diplomacy to… maintain the status quo. Partly this was to continue Britain’s existing support for Ukraine, where continuity was the right policy, but it was also billed as a quest for a “reset” with the European Union. Except that there hasn’t been any notable reset, since the pre-election red lines of no re-entry into the customs union and the single market have now been extended even to downplaying the possibility of a youth mobility scheme and re-entry to the student Erasmus programme.
For a government intent on growth, ignoring the collapse of our EU imports and exports, as well as educational and cultural exchanges with Europe, is a mistake. A big argument with the Tories and Farage on reviving British trade is about the most worthwhile thing that Starmer could be doing if he wants a compelling agenda for change and growth. It could also be made very popular, not least with British business.
However, just as important is a big argument with the Tories and Farage on saving the NHS and boosting public services and infrastructure. And that depends upon a bold budget which does all three, with a tax-and-investment plan that carries the day.
So far, the signals from the Treasury have been strangely contradictory. Public investment is being cut or increased by Treasury spin doctors on different days of the week, sometimes with the fool’s gold of a new version of the failed private finance initiative for public investment. There have been welcome briefings that Reeves “gets the message” on the NHS. But there are also briefings questioning whether even Labour’s existing tax commitments on non-doms and private equity are viable, and briefings against possible changes to the highly generous regime of pension tax relief for the better off. Yet the money for the NHS and public investment has to come from somewhere.
So it is all still to play for.
As for the first 100 days, and the 100 or 200 after, governments can lose them and still win a few years later. Thatcher’s first two-and-a-half years saw her popularity collapse as inflation and unemployment soared. Then came the Falklands, an economic revival, Labour’s lurch to the left… and her 1983 landslide.
