Sir Keir Starmer has been prime minister for less than three months, yet Labour begins its annual conference this weekend already weighed down by incumbency. Rows over gifts from wealthy donors and tickets to football games as well as squabbling about his chief of staff’s pay are feeding into public disquiet. These come when the burden of government in difficult economic circumstances and in an age of low public trust would have shortened any political honeymoon period. But Downing Street also set out with the explicit objective of dampening expectations of how soon change might come. That mission has been accomplished with a needless surplus of gloom.
Sir Keir’s urgent task in Liverpool is 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 ruled by Tories. New governments often come to power blaming the last. Sir Keir has given the nation an unvarnished account of the dismal legacy he has inherited. That bleak audit covers a record of political and financial maladministration.
Conservative ministers, driven by ideological fanaticism and self-serving cynicism, squandered energy and resources on ill-conceived, unworkable policies, while starving public services of vital resources. Sir Keir has a difficult job because the country is in a terrible state. Putting things right will take time. But that morose message has been 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. The chancellor, citing “black holes” in the budget, withdraws winter fuel payments for all but the poorest pensioners and pledges more pain to come. Rachel Reeves’ argument is that government departments would outspend budgets by £22bn more than previously disclosed and that cuts were 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.
Downing Street 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. Maybe so, maybe not. There is no way to test the counterfactual scenario, where Ms Reeves 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 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 utilities.
The Starmerite script contains rather too much fiscal conservatism, but the hope is that there is a social democratic framework at its core. It expresses the opposite of the Tory conviction that government’s main function is to facilitate market supremacy and then get out of the way. Many of the activists and MPs gathering in Liverpool feel unsure which of the two strands – cringing continuity or bold departure – will dominate. Sir Keir’s task is to answer in terms that give hope of meaningful change to come.
