Election Watch #1: Who is Keir Starmer, and does he have what it takes?
The first in a regular series covering the run up to the UK general election. Current chance of a Labour victory: 95%
On the morning of 4th May 1997, a colleague danced up to my desk at Shelter, where I was then employed, and slapped me hard on the back. I could tell from the whoops who it was, and as I turned to see Tim’s face, I knew from the glazed look in his eyes, as well as the bags under them, that he’d been up all night celebrating Tony Blair’s election victory at the Royal Festival Hall.
Like Tim, I was pleased Labour had won and finally put an end to 18 years of Conservative rule - we had both been teenagers when Margaret Thatcher won her first general election - but I struggled to share his euphoria. And I could see that he struggled with my reaction, which he no doubt read as antipathy.
He was right. Antipathy was my overwhelming reaction, not to his joyous celebration, but to his apparent belief that Britain had become a better place overnight. I was painfully aware of how little difference even principled politicians could make in respect of the things I cared about most. I knew that Blair and his ministers would work hard to improve the experience of life for more Brits. But I had not heard anything during the election campaign to suggest that New Labour would be as radical in pursuit of its professed principles as Thatcher has been after 1979. Indeed, Blair had already committed himself to not rolling back much of Thatcher’s economic revolution; his plan was to make it work more efficiently, to raise more in taxes and use the money to improve the lot of those for whom the economy no longer delivered the chance to earn a decent living for themselves.
While my knowledge of economics was several hundred books less than it is now, I knew this was not an effective strategy for a more equal society, nor one in which poverty at the bottom would be permanently reduced. I feel pretty much the same way today, at most 10 months out from a general election that looks increasingly likely to put Keir Starmer in Downing Street with a parliamentary majority of Blair-like proportions.
Wednesday’s Guardian carried a story about Starmer by his biographer (and former Labour adviser) Tom Baldwin. It’s a good piece: Baldwin presents Starmer as a different kind politicians (good) who cares passionately about people (excellent), especially those whom, for whatever reason, get a poor deal from society (fantastic). Starmer also has a great sense of humour (essential I would imagine) and a ruthless streak when it comes to doing whatever it takes to win the election (essential again, and amply demonstrated in the way he has dealt with the problem of anti-semitism in the Labour Party, which made it unelectable under his predecessor, Jeremy Corbyn).
On the downside, he can be politically naive, sometimes relying too heavily on advisers in respect of electoral strategy (chill - it’s a problem that largely disappears, at least for a while, once he’s in power). Baldwin convincingly rebuts the frequent assertion that Starmer doesn’t stand for anything, a perception he blames on the media for failing adequately to report on Labour’s ‘five missions’. He’s right: they have been woefully under-reported. So let’s put that right: (Policy areas in brackets supplied by me in case they’re not immediately obvious - and yes, that could be a problem).
Get Britain building again (Housing and infrastructure)
Switch on great British energy (Environment and energy security)
Get the NHS back on its feet (Health and wellbeing)
Take back our streets (Law and order)
Break down barriers to opportunity (Education and early years)
Each of these is fleshed out with some policy detail on the Labour website here. I think, as a framework for an election campaign and manifesto, it more or less hits the mark. As long as it’s reasonably well communicated in the coming months, it could well push Labour polling figures into unassailable territory.
But everything changes the day after the election. And people within and beyond Labour are already questioning whether the state of the public finances will allow Starmer to make tangible progress with any of these missions. And it’s telling that they are prefaced with the statement that:
‘Labour will stick to tough fiscal rules with economic stability at their heart.’
Economic stability is, of course, good. Whether sticking to tough fiscal rules is the way to achieve it is a debate for another day. Spoiler alert: that debate will inevitably conclude that a more just and sustainable society requires a quite different approach to public finances. And worryingly, there seems to be nobody within the party or among its advisors with the economic nouse to take on this immense challenge.
For what it’s worth, my hunch is that the election will be held on Thursday 7th November. I hope to publish at least weekly updates in this series between now and then. I think the chances of Keir Starmer walking through the door of 10 Downing Street this year currently stand at 95 percent. I’ll update this figure each week in response to events. If there’s one thing we have learned from the last decade, it’s that nothing can be taken for granted in politics.
And while I won’t be dancing around my current work place if Labour does win, this time I promise not to dump on the euphoria of any colleagues who do.