Starmer, it’s all about delivering on those promises

Good morning. Keir Starmer will present Labour’s “Plan for Change” in a big speech today. Some thoughts on his government’s current position in today’s note.

Mission control

What do people think of the new Labor government? Well, they are not very enthusiastic.

The bad news for Labor is that people don’t believe they are making progress on their own five overarching missions and that they will not achieve them until the next election, according to the latest Ipsos survey. good news? People do not believe that he is making progress on his five overarching missions and that he will not achieve them by the next election.

The main political problem facing the Labor Party is that it has relied on a one-word message of “Change” and its position has inevitably been damaged by turning to “We’re sorry for the inconvenience”. The problem with the big picture policy is that some of the prescriptions may not work, and others, such as the chosen tax increase, may actively harm its goals.

But if he manages to deliver things right, I think he’ll be rewarded. Historically, British voters tend to keep the government in place until it hits an economic crisis and the opposition is not considered formidable.

However, “Getting things right” is much easier to write than actually do, and part of the reason Keir Starmer is unveiling his new “Plan for Change” is that it is designed to better enable Downing Street to capture the agenda and persuade is that it really delivers. Starmer and his new chief of staff Morgan McSweeney actively recruited people from Tony Blair’s time in government, while McSweeney also borrowed some structures from when Dom Cummings was chief of staff.

It is wrong to judge the new government by whether it will win the elections that will not be held for four to five years. (Think of it this way: The next election is likely to take place after the end of Donald Trump’s second presidential term.) Everything Starmer says today, and indeed much of what he does this year, will be as central to the next election as, say, Rishi Sunak’s first budget was to 2024. . not really.

It seems unlikely that Labor will fail to deliver some fundamentally improving the state of the NHS, a mission Labor voters see as most important and historically one of the key battlegrounds, given that even if everything it tries to do to reform it fails, it will still spend billions more.

But the party’s biggest problem remains that the promise of income tax, value added tax and national insurance — another promise that Labor voters really care about. It’s a promise that puts tight limits on what he can do and pushes him toward frankly undesirable revenue-raisers, such as increasing employers’ National Insurance contributions.

As I said before, in many ways the story of the last election is as simple as “Keir Starmer moved Labor towards the promises Boris Johnson made in 2019, while the Conservative Party failed to deliver on those promises and also moved away from them rhetorically”.

The 2019 Conservative manifesto remains an almost perfect summary of where the “centre” of British politics is. But the problem is that all the promises in it – reduced immigration, more money for public services, no increase in income tax, VAT or national insurance – cannot be reconciled with each other. While you can soften some edges by reforming Whitehall or public services, you can’t escape that underlying problem: and just as it caused problems for Boris Johnson and his successors in the last parliament, it will be a problem for Starmer in this one.

Now try this

Inspired by FT Magazine’s masterstroke to do its own thing Christmas edition early enough so that I can adopt his best practice at a time when it’s actually useful, I thought for the next week I’d recommend some places that I’ve received some nice gifts from over the years, when some inspiration could really be used.

I I really love Canterbury Ceramicsdishes (actually as I write this I’m sipping from a beautiful mug my partner bought me), and Pattern design by Gail Myerscough (iPhone case I got myself).

Top news today

• A new era | The head of the British army has warned that the world is under attack on the edge of the third nuclear age with an “almost complete lack” of guardrails to keep it safe.

• Targets | Keir Starmer refused to repeat his manifesto pledge to make Britain the fastest growing economy in the G7as a new report suggested that the US and Canada had overtaken the UK.

• SNP doubles | The Scottish Government has promised end the allowance limit for two children next year, part of a package of measures to reduce child poverty and strengthen public services in line with the political priorities of First Minister John Swinney.

• Khan unbowed | Sadiq Khan warned that British politicians must don’t be “sneaky” according to Donald Trump when he re-enters the White House, as the London mayor said he still plans to “speak out” about the behavior of the future US president.