How much longer can Keir Starmer continue to blame the woes he and the UK face entirely on the legacy of the last Conservative government? A tired mantra, it is increasingly unconvincing, no matter how poorly the previous administration performed.
Westminster’s return from the summer recess finds the prime minister’s Labour government drifting on approval ratings as low as 20 per cent, trailing behind Nigel Farage’s Reform party in the most recent opinion polls, constantly on the back foot over immigration and public spending, paralysed by its own impossible promises. Monday’s minor cabinet reshuffle will not convince that a reset is underway.
Home secretary Yvette Cooper has been able to announce a significant August fall in small boat crossings and a tightening of asylum seeker family reunion rules, the government has signed up to a new one-in-one-out deal with the French, and won its appeal against a court ruling that threatened to close hotel accommodation for asylum seekers. But the anti-migrant climate and street demonstrations are building. Labour’s promise to “smash the gangs” has yet to bear fruit and its vulnerable backbench MPs are jittery.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves, who was criticised by many Labour MPs over her politically disastrous plan to strip winter fuel payments from 10 million pensioners, and abandoned attempts to save £5 billion from the welfare budget, must now find up to €58 billion in tax rises and cuts to balance her autumn budget, expected towards the end of October. Her hands are tied by the pledge of no further taxation on “working people”, but can this centrist government bring itself to embrace growing backbench demands for wealth or property taxation?
RM Block
Starmer told the BBC that “we now enter into phase-two of the government, which is where we focus on delivery, delivery, delivery, and start to show what a difference a Labour government really makes”. But we have been here before.A new focus on delivery will not be enough. Labour needs to inspire with a new vision.
