Left-of-centre voters are already disillusioned with Keir Starmer and his cronies. (Image: Getty)
My friend, a moderate, left-of-centre, thoughtful voter, is already disillusioned with Keir Starmer and his cronies.
Over dinner, she decried the first few months of the Labour regime and said she was genuinely disappointed with the direction of travel that the new administration has taken, particularly with the cut to winter fuel allowance. “How can it be a good idea to allow thousands of pensioners to freeze to death?” she asked.
My pal, who has always voted for a left of centre party and has dallyed with the Liberal Democrats more than once, says she feels “politically homeless”.
And she appears not to be alone after the number of people signing a petition calling for an early General Election approaching 3million.
Normally, a party winning a majority of 170-plus would be looking forward to a decade or more in government. But it is already clear that the recklessness of Labour is opening the possibility of a quicker return to power for the Tories than could have been dreamed of.
Indeed, a recent ConservativeHome survey of party members showed that nearly 40percent expect a Tory majority at the next election.
There is little doubt that any goodwill Labour had at the start of this administration has evaporated. And the reason? Starmer and Labour are phenomenally bad at the politics of politics. And as a former special adviser I know exactly how much that matters.
It is far from clear that Labour has a coherent plan for its first term in office apart from a bit of class hatred. But it is the way Labour has implemented its policies that threatens to destroy it.
As a special adviser friend of mine says: “It’s all about the optics.”
For a leader whose raison d’etre in opposition was pouring scorn on the Conservatives for their alleged corruption and misconduct, to be caught within days of entering No10 in his own cash for access scandal was ludicrous. Labour genuinely believe they are the ‘good guys’ compared to the Conservatives, but their naivety is beyond comprehension.
How can anyone in No10 think that taking tens of thousands of pounds for clothes, including for Sir Keir’s wife, and allowing access to a wealthy donor in return for an expensive pair of spectacles is anything but a bad idea?
Enacting their policies has shown the same stupidity. I suspect Labour have decided that pensioners are more likely to be Tory voters and that a chunk will have died anyhow by the next election, and that axing resources to that age-group is their best way of making savings.
But what astounds is the way it has been brought in. Cutting the winter fuel allowance for tens of thousands of pensioners is stupid politics. The cut will raise barely £1bn, a drop in the ocean in government spending and opprobrium has been rightly poured on Starmer and Chancellor Rachel Reeves for the move. And it’s unlikely those affected are going to forget next time they go to the ballot box.
As we are seeing it is a deeply cruel, upsetting and immoral plan.
But if you really are going to take grief over decisions, then make it worthwhile. Labour could for instance have cut the triple lock on pensions – a move that potentially could save £10billion a year to invest elsewhere. But of course they lack the backbone to try that.
Being inside government is hard, believe me I know. You’re under fire all the time and you have to make tricky decisions. Ministers are under pressure from Number 10, from their departments, from industry, from other stakeholders, from party members and others. You can’t please all the people all the time.
That’s why if you have to make an unpopular decision, make it one that is advantageous and you can sell the reasoning.
Again, I am absolutely not advocating a cut to the triple lock – it is one of the best policies of the David Cameron years and a lifeline for those who have contributed to this country for decades.
But the issue shows how Labour’s moral vacuousness and political idiocy makes for nothing but chaos.
They have significantly fewer special advisers than the last Conservative government and those in post have almost no experience of making the world of Whitehall work. Labour is struggling with the mechanics of government (Treasury officials seem to be able to run rings around Reeves) – but more damagingly it is struggling to grasp the consequences of policy and how changes will play out in the public consciousness.
Other policies are no different. The rise in student tuition fees by £250 announced earlier this month have been slammed by youngsters who already face a lifetime of debt because of the loan-shark style nature of the scheme. Yet the rise will not even pay for the hike in national insurance payments universities face.
And, of course, it flies in the face of Starmer’s pledge to get rid of tuition fees when he stood to be Labour leader but then no surprise there.
Maximum political damage and minimum gain. Classic Labour.
It’s the same in everything Labour are doing. ‘We want growth in the economy”… so let’s put a tax on businesses which will directly hit employment and investment.
‘We won’t raise taxes on working people’.. so let’s allow inflation busting rises in council tax.
‘We need better food security’… so let’s destroy the family farming sector with an inheritance tax that makes it impossible to pass on the business to future generations.
‘We want people from abroad to invest in the UK and buy our products’.. so let’s force them to leave by taking away non-dom rights that means they just take all their money to other countries.
And, of course, Starmer promised to bring integrity back to politics. So what better than to appoint a convicted fraudster Louise Haigh to the Cabinet.
This week Starmer has done a big political reset in a bid to kick-start his administration – incredibly after only 150 days in power. (I know Labour deny it is a reset, but as the adage goes, if it looks like a reset, feels like a reset and smells like a reset… well you know what it is).
He has tried to set some parameters so that voters can judge how his party will, he hopes, improve living standards and the level of public services. They are pretty low level and unambitious but you can see the reasoning.
But it still leaves Labour in a precarious position.
David Cameron and George Osborne successfully made public sector restraint and so-called austerity a key plank of their policymaking and electioneering after 2010. Basically, we can bring the economy back under control – and with the promise of low employment and a better standard of living in sight. Voters bought into it and were willing to live with the pain because they could see a brighter future.
Keir Starmer has failed to explain the details of how his tax rises and policy fiddling will improve the nation at all, except by giving public sector workers inflation-busting pay rises.
If there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, it doesn’t feel like we’ve been told what it is yet.
And that central messaging is a real problem for a government led by a man with no charisma and a party which won with little popular enthusiasm. He’s out of touch with the country and with no one by his side to make good suggestions apart from the facile: ‘We know we’re the good guys, it will be ok.’
It is, of course, a long time to the next election and the Tories have work to do to create a coherent manifesto that addresses the issues the nation faces.
But there’s every reason to think they will be able to provide a place to go for those people who feel politically homeless like my friend.
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