Cast your mind back to 5 July 2024, when a Labour administration typically described as cautious and centrist took office. Then imagine that you were told it would do all of the following over the next 18 months: raise taxes by £66bn (especially on business and the wealthy), increase public spending by £300bn, loosen its fiscal rules for investment, radically expand workers’ and renters’ rights, curb academy school freedoms, double-down on net zero, sign a new EU agreement and recognise a Palestinian state.
You might not be surprised – I did tell you much of this would happen. Or you might wonder if Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves had been replaced by Angela Rayner and Ed Miliband. There’s much talk of that prospect now and of Labour’s great moving-left show (as I noted yesterday). Miliband has spoken of the need for a “moment of change”; Andy Burnham has demanded a “new political culture” that champions the “underdogs of Britain”. Unsettled by such rhetoric, the more thoughtful conservative commentators are beginning to make the right-wing case for Starmer.
But the starting point for any debate on Labour’s future should be this: we already have, by British standards, a left-wing government. The always-readable Daniel Finkelstein writes today that, following the resignation of Morgan McSweeney, Labour will “tax the rich more, increase welfare bills, impose more rules on business, engage in ‘progressive’ political reform, realign with the European single market and put more effort and emphasis on net zero”. Quite possibly, but the striking thing is how much of the above is already happening.
That’s why the Starmer government has been defined by the disparity between policy and vibes. The Prime Minister’s most memorable speeches haven’t been on a new economic settlement or a more progressive government but on an “island of strangers” and the “flabby state” (“Starmer echoes Liz Truss,” ran a BBC headline that should have had Labour aides screaming in horror). Hawkish policy announcements such as winter fuel payment cuts were held up as totems of discipline. Gordon Brown used to be accused of “stealth redistribution”; Labour has turned stealth leftism into an entire governing strategy.
It hasn’t gone well. There is angst and puzzlement among Starmer’s remaining champions at his record unpopularity: how, they ask, can he possibly be more disliked than Liz Truss and Boris Johnson? A cynical public and a right-wing media are then typically blamed. But there’s another factor too: Truss and Johnson, even at their lowest moments, retained a bedrock of ideological support. Starmer, as well as suffering from the traditional left-to-right swing against a Labour government, has alienated his natural sympathisers. You can’t give the impression of disliking most of your old university friends and then complain when almost none of them come to your birthday party. Especially if the lads at the Reform club simply threw the invite in the bin.
Whoever succeeds Starmer – if they have any interest in winning a general election – will have to change this. That doesn’t necessarily require a radical shift in policy, but it does mean a shift in vibes (as Wes Streeting understands). Talking right, acting left and leaving almost everyone disappointed is the road to defeat.
This piece first appeared in the Morning Call newsletter; receive it every morning by subscribing on Substack here
[Further reading: Keir Starmer’s silver lining]
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