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| Time for bold action, Prime Minister (Image: The Week) |
Sir Keir Starmer has been Prime Minister for two months and already The Daily Telegraph sound as though he's governed a dystopian Britain for a decade. I suppose the government do need an opposition of some kind, as the Conservatives seek a new leader. Who better to fill those shoes than the paper dubbed the 'Torygraph', led by editor Chris Evans, associate editor Camilla Tominey and their disciples.
Some of the column pieces that have come out of the media title have been bold to say the least. On 7th September 2024 alone, writers have accused Labour of being 'the stupid party', not understanding 'the most basic rules of economics', and that Starmer is 'the prisoner of Labour's Leftist factions' and 'plotting a tax raid on inheritance'. These are quite telling words aimed at a government which, of the nine weeks it's been around, six of them have been summer recess. During this 'break', Starmer toured parts of the UK, including Wales, to promote green energy projects, networked with major European leaders, and tried to be a voice of reason when communities were being threatened by small groups of mindless and narrowminded rioters - the latter had resulted in him reportedly 'cancelling his holiday'.
For critics concerned that Starmer isn't doing enough in his early days, I suggest they don't panic. It's quite normal to use the first few weeks of a new job to get used to the new surroundings and not go in all guns blazing. It's good to see him not rushing and not change things for the sake of changing things at this stage. He is also getting the tone right on the economic and social challenges Britain is facing today. You cannot sugarcoat the last 14 years. It's early days, but I am cautiously optimistic about the country's future prospects.
Of course, this Labour government will need to win so many people over, including myself to a degree. Please don't think I've done a full 180 from deciding not to vote the party in July to being its cheerleader today. While it has a big majority in Parliament, the vote count at the general election suggested the victory wasn't convincing enough to give Starmer and his cabinet a free ride. They're also acutely aware that the party got elected to power because there was very little faith left in the Tory party.
The coming weeks will be crucial. but unlike The Daily Telegraph, I'd be reluctant to judge this government's competence or record right at this moment. Reacting negatively to what Starmer or chancellor Rachel Reeves have been saying in recent weeks will not help as we're yet to see policies set out by them take shape. While some policies have been flirted with, like who should and shouldn't get the winter fuel allowance this year, or binning the Rwanda scheme, we won't know what these truly mean until details are ironed out.
The problem is that there is a huge expectation for this government to deliver, and fast. And the fact Starmer is taking his time, revealing his concrete principles little-by-little, is driving the Telegraph and the like mad. His approach will have worked wonders 25-30 years ago when everything wasn't instant. However, with opposing views and ideologies getting increasingly extreme in tone and are endorsed by mainstream figures - cue Elon Musk - the Prime Minister will need to soon change tact before the said views become more severe. The coming weeks to address these are crucial.
With divisions so stark and fired up, it's important for Starmer to focus on how to heal those, regardless of how he feels about said individuals and groups. This starts by choosing who his opponents are. It was unhelpful of him, for example, to suspend seven of his Labour MPs over a 'rebellion' vote on the two-child benefit cap policy. The last thing he should be doing is to risk dividing his party when disagreements amongst colleagues are normal. He can't dismiss every Labour 'rebel' otherwise we'd be in hung parliament territory by next summer.
Joking aside, Starmer will want to better identify who is threatening his party's vision to boost Britain's prospects. A selected few Labour backbenchers aren't the cause of the divisions we are seeing in the country today. Rewind back to the 1980s, we would have suggested 'right-leaning' newspapers being the lead cause. But today, the challenge is arguably greater and more complicated, thanks to social media platforms - more specifically X - which allow for extreme, divisive views and conspiracy theories to be shared widely by constituents, bots and influencers. It's difficult to emulate what Blair did with the tabloids in 1997 when social media owners like X's Elon Musk openly stir that Britain is headed towards 'a civil war.' One certainly hopes Starmer realises that it's Musk, not John McDonnell, who is stoking up division that could hinder this government's progress.
The key way of shrugging off Musk and his ilk is to come up with policies that would benefit the majority, thus result in the reduction of dangerous and unfounded theory making. The autumn budget on 30th October 2024 will present the first golden opportunity to tackling this challenge. While the economy is showing signs of improvement, it is still one mini disaster away from being back to the brink. The positive outlook is not being translated to people's pockets and that is fuelling unrest. The process will be a marathon rather than a sprint because we have become an increasingly cynical nation, but if Starmer can cancel out noise from hot-headed critics and deliver on good results, he will enjoy a decent premiership.
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