“The era of big government is over,” declared Bill Clinton in his 1996 State of the Union Address. Keir Starmer is not the kind of politician to make such sweeping pronouncements. But the conclusion that left and right alike have drawn from the King’s Speech is that big government is back.
It’s a reasonable one. As I write in my column in this week’s magazine, Starmer’s administration is perhaps the most interventionist since Harold Wilson’s. The 40 bills that comprise the King’s Speech (the highest number since 2005) include plans to renationalise the railways, expand workers’ rights, establish Great British Energy, protect renters and create an independent football regulator.
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