Run it up the flagpole and see who salutes. Fly that kite. Flush the bastards out. Pre-emptive, exploratory politics are perfectly sensible, but they always depend on context and timing.
In this week of tumult and mild hysteria, after the Keir Starmer “coup” briefing and then the sudden reversal of the previous Rachel Reeves kite-flying about breaking a manifesto commitment on income tax, the conclusion is clear. Nobody saluted. Indeed, there was a concerted attempt to cut the flagpole down. Not a pitch-perfect triumph.
The original proposal to break election promises and raise income tax was a good one economically. The money was genuinely desperately needed, and the measure meant not having to hit specific groups intolerably hard, as the earlier inheritance tax impost had hit farmers. Better a widespread, everyone-together reckoning than a series of crises.
Now, it turns out that the all-important Office of Budget Responsibility numbers indicate that the Chancellor is around £10 billion better off than she expected. And that the political backlash on the Labour benches and in opinion polling was even worse than feared. Sensible to fly the kite. Sensible to acknowledge that it crashed.
Trouble is, the overall impression of uncertainty and misdirection again spooked the markets. (It caused a sell-off of gilts, though much of this was recovered.) And, of course, it leaves open the big questions about where the missing money will come from. Tax thresholds seem likely to be frozen rather than cut, which is again sensible. But what will happen to drivers, savers, gamblers and people in expensive houses?
The cloud of unknowing, which the bond markets so hate, hangs over the politics of the Starmer government more generally. Morgan McSweeney, the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, did not, I believe, brief personally against Wes Streeting. But other people, taking a lead from No 10, clearly did, and the damage is probably not repairable.
I am told the Health Secretary was badly upset by the treatment of his partner Joe Dancey during his relatively brief time in Downing Street as a policy and communications director. Streeting himself, by a mile the best communicator the government has, was furious about the briefing. It may take more than a promised cup of tea with the Prime Minister in the week ahead to restore relations.
Streeting has a great deal on his plate. The spreading doctors’ strike may test public support for the NHS and the taxation required to keep it going. Streeting is not currently running a leadership bid but the events of the last few days, and the blood spilled, make such a contest later in the winter or next year likelier.
There’s no point in just being against briefing: it is a fact of political life in any democracy. Ministers might condemn it, and some behave with more restraint than others, but it only becomes a real problem when a leader has lost authority and colleagues and rivals are circling for the job. If you are in the Labour cabinet right now, and you think, “poor Keir is in trouble. He may have to go soon. I could do that job,” then the first thing you have to do is remove the obvious obstacle in your path, which is eloquent, self-confident and Wes-shaped.
Streeting has the talent for the top job but still needs to forge the full policy prospectus he could sell. Close to Rachel Reeves, he would probably keep her on. So he would have to demonstrate why he was not, in economics, continuity Starmer.
Starmer and Ed Miliband are close, and I suspect will become closer still as the internal conflict worsens. Miliband’s chances of protecting his net zero and clean energy agenda have never been stronger, because Starmer needs him so badly. The Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, bringing her radical thinking on the ECHR and the Refugee Convention to the Commons this coming week, is another possible successor eyed with deep suspicion by other ministers.
And, if there is an obvious traditional Labour candidate waiting quietly in the wings, it is John Healey, the Defence Secretary. With strong Yorkshire roots, he would be a “safe pair of hands” reassuring choice for a party facing electoral meltdown.
Starmer’s No 10 is right when it says that leadership speculation simply spooks the markets, makes the Chancellor’s job even harder and involves a quantity of self-indulgence this Labour government at this moment can’t afford.
The trouble is, the briefings have made the Prime Minister’s position much rockier, while the budget speculation has damaged both the economy and the Chancellor’s authority. To return to those original metaphors, the kite’s crashed into the flag, the troops have stopped saluting and are punching one another instead, while any attempted flushing-out has left the system blocked, groaning and about to burst. No, on the whole, not the finest week’s work.
[Further reading: What’s behind Labour’s income tax U-turn?]
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