In his New Year speech and the Q&A afterwards, Keir Starmer carried the confidence, if not the swagger, of an Opposition leader who knows he’s on course for government.
But there was also a marked defensiveness, both in expectation of the relentlessly negative Tory attacks he will face in the election campaign and – perhaps a bigger worry – the huge economic and public service challenges he will face if he wins.
Starmer’s overriding message for this 2024 election year was that he would offer the British voters a “credible hope” of change, rather than the disastrous utopias or stubborn stagnation of the past 14 years of Tory rule.
Yet while that phrase “credible hope” is a plausible political programme for a low-growth nation battered by Covid and a cost of living crisis, it’s far from easy to pull off.
When he told voters “you’re right to be anti-Westminster”, and talked about himself as some kind of outsider, it felt like the cynical and “populist” approach he disdains.
Confusing the Tory government with “Westminster”, lumping his own party in with all the others, projecting Parliament as an obstacle not a solution, felt like a mistake.
Starmer’s own talk of the “despair of a downtrodden country”, and his repeated references to “decline”, were also a doomfest that at times contradicted his attempts at “Project Hope”. There’s a big difference between saying ‘the Government are awful’ and saying ‘Britain is awful’.
The Labour leader’s words make plain he knows that to win one of the biggest swings in modern history, he must somehow balance the different moods in different parts of the electorate: both those who want reassurance that Labour won’t waste their money and those who want radical change as soon as possible.
Similarly, while some voters’ trust in politicians is so low that they expect very little, others expect a huge amount. The Labour leader said “the biggest challenge we face” is “the shrug of the shoulder”.
That’s not because stay-at-home voters won’t deliver a Labour victory (Tory supporters sitting on their hands helped deliver Tony Blair’s landslides and may deliver Starmer one too). It’s because the higher your vote, the more of a mandate you have for change that may prove difficult or slow.
And the most striking feature of Starmer’s event was the tension between his urgency in getting the Tories out and his plea for patience on how quickly Labour could make a big difference. His talk of a “decade of renewal”, of no “quick fix”, confirmed that.
On tax, he repeatedly said that he would offer tax cuts only once the economy was growing.
On spending, growth also had to come before “the state cheque book”. On his green prosperity plan, his caveats that he wouldn’t spend £28bn a year until the second half of a Parliament, and that it won’t be £28bn (because the Tories have spent some already and because Labour’s rules will require falling debt) were yet another sign he thinks defence is the best offence.
He’s betting the farm that his radical reforms to planning rules (which won’t cost him a penny) will unleash the private sector cash for both clean tech jobs and for serious housebuilding.
But how quickly that happens remains to be seen. The problem with creating as small a target for Tory attacks as possible is you can end up creating a smaller target for votes too.
Ultimately, Starmer clearly believes the public will cut him some slack and give him the time (10 years on his timetable) to make a difference. His hope is that voters will share his belief that planning for the long term, incremental but sustainable change, is the realistic radicalism that Britain needs.
Perhaps the most interesting section of his speech was when he promised “a politics that treads a little lighter on all of our lives”. This was no-drama Starmer personified, a pledge to end the “exhausting” round of them-or-us divisive culture wars, “constantly focusing on this week’s common enemy.”
In what felt like a test for the voters as much for himself, he said politics is “more demanding of you, it asks you to moderate your political wishes out of respect for the different wishes of others”.
Can you be passionately moderate? Can you be a radical realist? Starmer thinks so. And this year’s election will tell us whether the public agrees.
Keir Starmer’s ‘radical realism’ is a plea for patience from voters
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04.01.2024
In his New Year speech and the Q&A afterwards, Keir Starmer carried the confidence, if not the swagger, of an Opposition leader who knows he’s on course for government.
But there was also a marked defensiveness, both in expectation of the relentlessly negative Tory attacks he will face in the election campaign and – perhaps a bigger worry – the huge economic and public service challenges he will face if he wins.
Starmer’s overriding message for this 2024 election year was that he would offer the British voters a “credible hope” of change, rather than the disastrous utopias or stubborn stagnation of the past 14 years of Tory rule.
Yet while that phrase “credible hope” is a plausible political programme for a low-growth nation battered by Covid and a cost of living crisis, it’s far from easy to pull off.
When he told voters “you’re right to be anti-Westminster”, and talked about himself as some kind of outsider, it felt like the cynical and “populist” approach he disdains.
Confusing the Tory government with “Westminster”, lumping his own party........
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