Why would anyone support this government? Keir Starmer has a near-invincible majority, a divided opposition and 14 years of Tory-managed decline against which to define his project. Problem is he doesn’t have a project, or a plan, or, at this rate, a policy.
Tim Shipman reveals that Labour will U-turn on inheritance tax changes which have been branded a ‘family farm tax’. The threshold will increase from £1 million to £2.5m, or £5m if there is a surviving spouse, which addresses many of the objections raised by farmers.
It joins a growing litany of policies jettisoned by a government that takes fright at public and especially backbench opposition. Labour has reversed course on raising income taxes at the Budget, scrapping the winter fuel payment, cutting the welfare bill, giving all employees protection from unfair dismissal, and not holding a grooming gangs inquiry.
Who does any of this appeal to? Not core supporters, who have to watch as the first Labour government in more than a decade turns tail on one position after another. Not floating voters either. They put Starmer in No. 10 because they were scunnered with a hectic, unstable, and untrustworthy government. The grown-ups, they were assured, were back in charge.
Labour was elected on the eternal promise of ‘change’, then proposed to continue the Treasuryism of George Osborne and most of his successors by prioritising fiscal discipline over social spending, before switching again. Labour has done this on issue after issue, putting it in the invidious position of representing continuity to voters who want change and indecision to voters who yearn for stability. Labour is all things to all people, except it’s only the bad things.
That’s not purely Starmer’s fault. Once a broad coalition, Labour has become an arranged marriage between irreconcilable interests (public sector dinosaurs, pro-growth urban professionals, metropolitan liberals and religious and ethnic sectarians) and political paralysis is hardly surprising when you have to navigate such fraught terrain. But the situation is worsened immeasurably by the man at the top.
Labour is all things to all people, except it’s only the bad things
Starmer is a dud. He lacks political instincts, knows tactics but not strategy, and demonstrates neither understanding nor curiosity about how policy or positioning is received beyond the M25. There is no evidence of a discernible philosophy beyond the angry-idealistic pieties and invincible certainties of the Oxbridge-educated soft-left. He is not British, he’s London. He’s not a reformer, he’s establishment. He’s not prime ministerial, he’s still a barrister trying to convince a jury that has stopped listening. Labour needs a leader, and more importantly Britain does too, but Starmer is not a leader.
A leader would have a cogent analysis of where the country has gone wrong, a programme for putting things right, and the grit to see it through, even if it meant backbench ructions and public disapproval. A leader would decide on a destination, stick to it, and plough through any opposition to get there, putting that towering majority to good use. He would tell the punters candidly that hard times were here again and here was how they could be overcome.
Keir Starmer can’t do any of this. He has no substance, he has no authority, he has no clue. He is spineless, witless and listless. There is no incentive to support him because he will always change his mind anyway. Starmer is going nowhere and so is Labour until it gets rid of him.
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