Most governments are at some point relaunched, often more than once. This is usually because a crisis hits—such as the Falklands War in 1982, Black Wednesday in 1992, the Iraq War in 2003, the Brexit referendum in 2016, Covid in 2020—and a completely new policy and approach are needed.
In Keir Starmer’s case, the problem isn’t so much a crisis but rather a lack of momentum. He was elected on a manifesto conspicuous mostly for promising not to do things, notably not to reverse Brexit or put up personal taxes. By contrast, the government’s declared “missions”—“highest G7 growth,” “opportunity for all”, “safer streets,” “clean energy”, “an NHS fit for the future”—are either vague or long-term or both.
That might not have mattered if, five months in, the direction of travel was clear and positive. Instead the government is on the defensive, with a continuing cost-of-living crisis and so far two ambiguous achievements to its name. The first is a major tax rise on businesses, as well as a lesser one on landowners, which even if they don’t breach Labour’s manifesto commitments have energised the right-wing media and parties and provoked a good deal of business opposition. The second is last week’s parliamentary vote for assisted dying legislation for the terminally ill. This is formally a non-party measure, but the fact that it is progressing at the start of the Starmer government, to huge fanfare, means that it is in danger of becoming Labour’s flagship NHS project.
Hence this week’s Starmer speech on “milestones” for public service improvement, green energy, housebuilding and other key public concerns. This is obviously an attempt to focus on a positive agenda and away from tax rises.
The good news is that, with an allocation of £22bn from the tax rises, the NHS ought to be able to show fairly quick progress in cutting the backlog of seven million patients on hospital waiting lists. Some bold targets will concentrate the minds of NHS managers and give the media a firm timetable to latch on to. Of course, Wes Streeting needs then to deliver on those targets. But he is more likely to do so if the NHS is put on public red alert. This is a key public concern, and it is right to put it at the centre of the government’s agenda.
Whether there are the resources or mechanisms to deliver in other areas is harder to tell. Housebuilding, for example, will depend on actions well beyond government, as well as on planning reforms as yet unannounced—and not to mention be subject to lengthy parliamentary and implementation processes. And where there are significant new public resources, as in green energy, the timescales for investment are fairly long and the impact on the public—in terms of energy prices at least—indeterminate.
So it would be best to keep it simple. Make the government’s core mission for the next year to “save the NHS” and focus as much attention on that goal as possible. Streeting is also the government’s best communicator, so it is a happy union of man and mission.
