It’s been a long time since anybody typed this, but the Tories have played an absolute blinder, haven’t they?
Calling an election five minutes before recess, taking £5billion out of the office kitty without anyone noticing, and gaslighting the electorate so magnificently, and for so long, that even after the electoral equivalent of the Jonestown massacre much of the Right Wing media is still prepared to criticise the clean-up crew for making a mess of the place.
Rishi Sunak could not have left the pitch in any worse a state without actually nuking it. Despite having the political nous and longevity of a root vegetable, he has thoroughly screwed the optimism of Labour’s first years in power as effectively as if he had smeared excrement deep into the Downing Street carpet.
Keir Starmer’s problem is not just fulfilling the few vague promises he made in Opposition. It is finding the rubber gloves, locating the source of the smell, and organising 400 student politicians to scrub in unison before he is in a position to even think about those promises before he has to go to the polls again.
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And that all requires the one thing Starmer is resolutely refusing to offer us or them: hope.
It’s all taking money off pensioners, which taxes he can raise with fewest squeals, things-are-going-to-get-worse-before-they-get-better-oh-s***-that’s-new. Doom, gloom, and a narrative of the first days in government which conjures an image of Mavis from Coronation Street, her mouth aghast at some upset while not knowing what the hell to do about it.
People went to the ballot box knowing it would be tough. It doesn’t need to be repeated ad infinitum. If a Prime Minister keeps talking about how difficult his job is, voters will simply decide he’s not up to it. You asked for it, they’ll say, suck it up. And while you’re at it, locate and water that magic money tree we keep hearing about.
The electorate is never as sympathetic to governments as it is to those in opposition. Perhaps it’s the British preference for an underdog, and perhaps it’s a case of quite reasonably expecting more from someone who’s sat behind the desk than the one auditioning. Unless Starmer can point to a light at the end of the tunnel, the local elections next May will not see the Tories hammered a little deeper into the ground, but instead give them the glimmer of hope everyone’s in need of.
Yes, Starmer may well have moved in and found the next-door neighbour has a nuclear arsenal and a bad attitude towards the hedge. Yes, he’s broke, genuine friends have been replaced by cronies, and letting one mate organise a party in his garden has led to him being labelled as corrupt as a man whose own ethics advisor not only resigned in disgust, but was himself found to have been unethical.
But it’s still the house he wanted to live in. He’s still got to pay back the goodwill that he borrowed to get there. And hope does not need to cost the Earth.
Promises to restore faith in public life have to start with a Hillsborough Law on day one of the new term, and an ethics commissioner with the right to investigate whatever they please by day two. Pledges to rebuild the NHS need a Royal Commission on making it fit for the future reporting back within a year, and action on a National Care Service which no taxpayer would object to.
And his insistence that he can build a better Britain can start with a one-year public inquiry into what happened to the results of human radiation experiments conducted on nuclear test veterans over more than a decade. A scandal which, when I first told him about it in person two years ago, made him scowl in disgust and offer his party’s unwavering support.
As Boris Johnson, Brexit, world wars and Margaret Thatcher have all proved, a country will swallow unending amounts of crap if it is leavened with a little optimism. If you can say, this is going to hurt a bit, but MY you’ll deserve a sweetie.
He stopped the riots, hooray! But only by letting out prisoners early, boo. Why not follow it up by announcing a policy of every inmate getting a job interview on leaving jail? Costs nowt, sounds grand, you’ve done your time, here are some bootstraps, now pull yourself up.
The failure of Starmer’s first two months of government is not his, or his MPs’. They barely know which way is up, yet, and any new government will take a couple of years to find its feet. The failure is purely one of messaging: that the spinners and SpAds have not found the beat that will keep voters on the dance floor long after their favourite tune has played out.
Starmer is relying on his team, but his team is as green as grass and just as likely to be trampled. They’re enduring a terrifying slog through apocalyptic in-trays, with mood music chosen by a Prime Minister who seems to be a Levellers fan stuck in a traffic jam, with only a Morrissey CD in the glovebox.
The fact that it was Sunak who set the route, arranged the entertainment, and failed to fill up the tank is at risk of being forgotten by the passengers. Top work Rishi, at last, but it’s time to come the f*** ON, Keir.