Just another manic Monday - political sketch

Sir Keir Starmer has just delivered what was billed as 'the speech of his life' - it landed like the proverbial lead balloon.

What Starmer has obviously failed to grasp is that he is the problem. Never an inspiring public speaker at the best of times, no amount of oratorical, rhetorical flourish could have come to his rescue on this occasion. To put it crudely, you can't polish a turd, although he tried valliantly this morning to roll it in glitter. He seems to feel that because in 2024 he delivered a Labour government for the first time in fourteen years - admittedly no mean feat after their trouncing in 2019 - on a slogan of 'change', he had made good on his side of the bargain with the British people and in 2026 it's 'job done'. This is utterly delusional; how long can he expect the British people to wait for a sign that the good times might actually roll? Pleading Brexit, Ukraine, Covid and now the Middle East, while perfectly valid, simply won't cut it. The change people voted for was to get rid of the hated Tories. What Starmer then needed to do to really seal the deal was to implement radical policies that would make people feel hopeful for their futures. He wanted the gig, but he has yet to deliver.

Tragically, instead of providing substantive action to improve people's lives, and those of their families, he immediately set about scrapping the pensioners' winter fuel payment while declining to scrap the two-child benefit cap, all the while delivering a doom-laden message about his government's dire legacy after fourteen years of Tory austerity! Telling people what they already knew - the reasons they had voted Labour in the first place - was poor cover for being bereft of ideas or ideology, much less inspiration. There then followed a series of embarrassing U-turns as Labour backbenchers began to rebel. Small wonder people didn't, and still don't, know what he stands for and, as a result, are reluctant to stand by him in his own hour of need.

As reboots or resets go, this morning's speech was, to quote Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg's famous line, "thin gruel" - or "too little, too late" as Starmer's challenger, Catherine West MP, has commented in response to his speech. Having promised at the weekend to give it due consideration before planning her next move she is now calling for an orderly transition to a leadership contest in September. This is hardly surprising. Apart from renationalising British Steel and getting closer to Europe (well, whoop-de-fucking-doop!) there was absolutely no substance in Starmer's offering, just more platitudes, more airy promises, more jam tomorrow. One can only hope, after two wasted years, that the forthcoming King's Speech, marking the new Parliamentary session, will provide the legislative platform for making Starmer's promised 'change' a reality. Will it include wealth or windfall taxes, renationalisation of water and other utilities, applying to join the European single market or customs union etc, etc? Highly unlikely.

The King's Speech will have some heavy lifting to do on Wednesday.

Popular posts from this blog

Myth take

In an essay for the openDemocracy newsletter on the future of Ukraine, Aman Sethi discusses national.myths. As he puts it, "we are all shaped by our myths, but we needn’t be bound to them. We are all born into our respective national identities, but we can each choose to reinterpret what they mean to us". On the 50th anniversary of the death of the Spanish dictator, Francisco Franco, modern Spain is doing precisely that; re-examining its post-Franco settlement, with strong challenges emerging from the left to the prevailing narrative of a successful parliamentary democracy guaranteed by a constitutional monarchy - a myth if ever there was one. While the United Kingdom is clearly not experiencing the same kind of existential crisis facing Ukraine as a result of Russian aggression, or dealing with the troubled legacy of a forty-year fascist regime like Spain, it is nevertheless in the throes of a crisis of identity. It could be argued that this is merely the latest iteration of...
Read more

Post-truth politics

A week used to be considered a long time in politics, now a day is an eternity. Rishi Sunak made his keynote speech to his party conference in Manchester only yesterday and yet, come the dawn, it seems we are in another era. This wasn't rowing back on pledges this was jumping in a speed boat and disappearing up the Manchester Ship Canal leaving truth, integrity, decency in his wake. Two of his major promises are already unravelling and more are sure to follow. Re-commencing the HS2:link from Euston to Old Oak Common and restoring the Leamside railway line in County Durham were greeted with enthusiastic applause - not as enthusiastic as his dog whistle anti-woke comments about "people believing they can be any sex they want" (he meant gender, of course) - but I guess in his position you take what you can get. Anyway, these have barely stood the test of twenty-four hours. Not so much soundbite politics as speed of sound politics.  It now appears that the government is only ...
Read more

A farago

The success of the right in the recent European elections suggests a weariness with liberal democracy, but what's the alternative? Not a very palatable one, I suggest, but there can be little doubt that the post-War western model of democracy is a busted flush. Small wonder, then, that illiberal democracy, or outright autocracy and demagoguery, seems to be becoming the norm worldwide. 2024 has been hailed as the year of elections. As Time puts it: "Globally, more voters than ever in history will head to the polls as at least 64 countries (plus the European Union) - representing a combined population of about 49% of the people in the world -  are meant to hold national elections, the results of which, for many, will prove consequential for years to come." The notion of illiberal democracy, as advocated by the rightwing prime minister of Hungary, Viktor Orbán, is gaining ground, but whether it can even be described as a type of democracy is open to question. It may preserve...
Read more