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Paul Vallely: How did Labour sink so far, so fast?

11 October 2024

The PM’s political instincts have been found wanting, declares Paul Vallely

Alamy

The Prime Minister at a press conference in Brussels on Wednesday

The Prime Minister at a press conference in Brussels on Wednesday

AFTER fewer than 100 days in office, why is it all going wrong for Sir Keir Starmer? The Labour infighting that preceded the departure of his chief of staff, Sue Gray, is only the latest unforced error in a series that have cast doubt on the Prime Minister’s ethical antennae and political judgement.

By now, the public should have had some idea of Labour’s direction of travel on the reform of the NHS, the planning system, public ownership of the railways and buses, and workers’ rights. But all that is in abeyance until the Budget, which will not be announced until almost 16 weeks after Labour came to office — double the time that it took Gordon Brown in 1997.

Instead, the vacuum has been filled with a series of avoidable mistakes: the refusal to rescind the two-child limit on benefit payments, the outcry over removing pensioners’ winter fuel allowance, and a sequence of revelations about the “freebies” garnered by Labour’s top politicians — most prominently, the PM’s free suits, spectacles, and tickets to a Taylor Swift concert. Rosie Duffield MP felt so disgusted that she resigned the Labour whip.

Now, other Labour flagship policies are encountering choppy waters. The Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, is being warned that her plans to raid pension savings will unfairly penalise up to a million teachers, nurses, and other public-sector workers. The manifesto plan to scrap non-dom tax status looks like it may bring in less money than expected. And the intent to slap VAT on independent school fees from January is being condemned as over-hasty by tax professionals, teaching unions, and special-needs experts. At the very least, the measure needs a proper impact-assessment.

How has Sir Keir so lost control of the agenda and made what one Left-leaning commentator lamented as “more mistakes in its first 100 days than any post-war government”? Perhaps it is because he has prioritised lawyerly logic over political instinct. Members of Labour’s top team have complained bitterly over what they call the “false equivalence” of the media in comparing paltry Labour freebies to the gargantuan freeloading of Boris Johnson, who blagged more than £200,000 from Tory cronies to redecorate his Downing Street flat, pay for his luxury holidays, and even pay for the marquee, portable lavatories, waiters, flowers, South African barbecue, and ice-cream van at his wedding.

The juxtaposition that Labour failed to understand was succinctly summarised by Kay Burley on Sky News, when she told the Minister for Border Security and Asylum, Dame Angela Eagle, that the PM was “taking £300 off pensioners” at the same time as helping himself to “£76,000 of freebies”. Just one of the Prime Minister’s free suits would heat a pensioner’s home all winter.

Such tabloid sallies may rely on false equivalence, but to voters struggling with the cost of living they smack of hypocrisy and reinforce the cynical notion that all politicians are venal and corrupt. Labour’s lead over the Conservatives has been slashed to one point in a poll this week.

Perhaps when the tangible policy proposals of the Chancellor are revealed in the Budget, Labour’s fortunes will be turned around. But all the recent gloomy warnings about tax rises and spending cuts suggest that the party has a big hill to climb.

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