Saturday 2 April 2022

Talk About a Revolution

I thought it was a bit odd. During his interview on Sky News on Thursday, Keir Starmer said he wanted to let people know Labour understands the difficulties they're facing, and he has practical plans for addressing them. He added "people don't want a revolution, they do want to know how they're going to pay their energy bill." And again in the same interview, "When I was talking to pensioners in Stevenage they weren't saying "Keir, we want a revolution", they were saying "Keir, we're really worried about our bills"". This is very strange. Literally no one is talking about revolution, neither in the authentic sense of the term nor in the trite manner Blairites used to bandy around words like "radical" and whatnot.

In the Novara video linked to above, Aaron Bastani suggests that Starmer's effort to ward off the revolutionary spectre is because, in the rarefied world of the Parliamentary Labour Party and its Westminster environs, the action necessary to fix the triple whammy of food price inflation, energy bills, and Rishi Sunak's National Insurance increase looks revolutionary. Indeed, with the cost of living likely to go up between £2k-£3k on average, the sorts of wage increases necessary to mitigate it are only usually found in the 'Where We Stand' columns of your Trot paper of choice.

I think there's a more straightforward political reason than this. First, Starmer is on the horns of a dilemma. On the one hand, like the Tories he doesn't want to commit Labour to offering much as a means of insulating his leadership from public pressures. Neither does he want to offer policies that have the merest connotation of Corbynism. But at the same time, to win an election Labour has to intersect with public concerns and seek to shape them. Starmer, as we have seen plenty of times these last couple of years, understands that he has to do the former but is lost at sea when it comes to the latter. Winning new voters while promising nothing during the biggest squeeze on incomes for a generation - tough gig.

Starmer's reach for the R word is a product of these tensions. Armed with latest pearls from Deborah Mattinson's focus groups, what the Labour leader is attempting to do is associate the party with the popular demand for something to be done about bills and prices, but at the same time attempting to placate the reactionary former Labour voter his circle think they can win back with Delphic language and constant apologies for existing. Starmer was seeking to assure this artefact of the Labour right's imagination that not having to choose between heating and eating isn't revolutionary politics. Seemingly unaware that those Labour has to win over are the "pensioners from Stevenage", who are among the vast bulk of people hardest hit by the Tories' refusal to do anything.

The emerging school of thought in Westminster and among the lobby hacks is that Starmer is very unlucky. Not so. Covid and the war in Ukraine have had their political opportunities where Labour could make a splash. And the cost of living crisis is another. The Tories have not only served Starmer up a juicy issue on a plate, they've taken the trouble of garnishing it with their customary indifference and inaction. Right now, there is a crisis threatening to plunge millions into further hardship. Among these are the home-owning pensioners Labour have steadily lost this century, and others ordinarily in the Tory camp. To use the jargon, it has cut through and has cross-party appeal. Any competent leader would seize the moment by the scruff of its neck to win over new voters and turn the heat up on their opponents. Instead, we have Keir Starmer who thinks the appropriate response is to plead with an imagined comfortable voter that all the little people want is a few crumbs from the table. If you want to understand why Labour is retreating in the polls and, again, Boris Johnson is seen as a more capable Prime Minister, look no further than this miserable spectacle.

Image Credit

8 comments:

Blissex said...

«Winning new voters while promising nothing during the biggest squeeze on incomes for a generation - tough gig. [...] If you want to understand why Labour is retreating in the polls and, again, Boris Johnson is seen as a more capable Prime Minister, look no further than this miserable spectacle.»

"The economy" is BOOMING:

https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/property/1589003/house-prices-growth-property-uk-nationwide-house-price-index-latest-uk
“Nationwide’s latest HPI has found that the annual house price growth increased to 14.3 percent in March, from 12.6 percent in February. The average house price in the UK now stands at £265,312, up from the £260,230 last month, with prices increasing by more than £33,000 in the past year.”

How can New Labour's core target constituency fail to adore Johnson for delivering so much prosperity to them? And entirely redistributed from the lower classes, which makes it so much more deserved. :-)

How can Starmer win them over? Only by addressing their "legitimate concerns" about taxes, for example by promising to make mortgage payments tax-deductible, or, like after a by-election, but giving existing property owners a veto on new developments in their area, or something similar. :-)

Phil said...

to plead with an imagined comfortable voter that all the little people want is a few crumbs from the table

I wonder if that is what he's doing. I suspect Mattinson's elves have also been listening to the "we had ice on the windows when I were a kid and it never did us any harm, those of us who survived to adulthood anyroad" brigade - people whose response to having to turn the heating off is not to exonerate everyone responsible and blame themselves for shivering. In which case "nobody wants a revolution, but" may be a last-ditch attempt to raise voters' expectations - the same expectations that these idiots have spent so long damping down.

Mark said...

Booming my proverbial. Irony I guess?! 😉Anyhow, house-price growth is a barrier to under-40s (under-50s, even?) and of no interest to most pensioners, given they’ve done all the moving they needed to.
Hope I’ve supplied the desired response! 🤷🏽‍♂️😀

Anonymous said...

I know this blog doesn't like Starmer, and there are some good (and some less good) reasons for that - but on this he's right, isn't he?

Most people - the large majority - do not in fact want a revolution. It is even arguable that one of the ways Corbynism went wrong was coming to greatly overestimate the number who do think like this.

Most people, though, definitely would like to see a government that is willing to help them meaningfully during the cost of living crisis.

As ever, the question is whether Starmer can grasp this opportunity.

Anonymous said...

«Anyhow, house-price growth is a barrier to under-40s (under-50s, even?)»

People who don't own property, especially if under 40, are "trots" and therefore invalid voters that no "anti-communist" party wants to represent. Nobody but them wants a "revolution". :-)

PS. "revolution" is well understood code for "lower housing costs, better wages", which is of course the same as "exterminate the kulaks" :-).

Blissex said...

«Most people - the large majority - do not in fact want a revolution. It is even arguable that one of the ways Corbynism went wrong was coming to greatly overestimate the number who do think like this.»

Oh please when Starmer says "revolution" that means "COMMUNISM!" as in extremist far-left wannabe kulak exterminator Corbyn :-).

«a government that is willing to help them meaningfully during the cost of living crisis.»

But that is COMMUNISM! :-). Unless it is done by ensuring property prices and rents grow much faster than inflation: “Nationwide’s latest HPI has found that the annual house price growth increased to 14.3 percent in March”. That's a lot of help from the government during the cost of living crisis (thanks to the well known MRBP [Make Renters and Buyers Pay] policy strategy).

Remember: increases in wages or welfare are "inflation" because they are increases in expenses, but increases in property prices and rents are "prosperity" because they are increases in incomes. It's as simple as that. :-)

Anonymous said...

Personally I feel our country's inability to see the floors of capitalism and its refusal to except the loss of empire needs revolutionary thinking to change it. Without it I don't see how we overcome the problems we now live with.

However, I understand a political stance of not wanting to scare voters away with fiery rhetoric but when Corbynism is considered to radical for the masses then nothing can surely be suggested to help.

Everyone can feel that the current system is broken, Starmer could capitalize on this feeling with just 2 or 3 ideas which could ease the pressure. Still real policies making a real difference. They wouldn't need to be overly radical just simple easy to grasp ideas turned into slogans repeated ad nauseam. The left wouldn't be happy, as this wouldn't be going far enough but it could cut through with the public. It could present an alternative. Beyond that Labour could then offer a manifesto of change. Again not radical, just like 97. Things would be better but not by much. He won't though.

First it could turn a currently disinterested press against him. Secondly it could upset the status quo. Neither are his aim. His entire play for power is to be so vanilla no one notices him and simply votes against the other guy. What he wants that power for is bewildering considering he seems to have no plan for it once he has it.

Labour seem to offer no alternative at all. This may gain them power but what is the point if they do nothing with it? UK politics in this state is pointless and will not affect change.

If it carries on and the people continue to be squeezed beyond what they can take, then it will not be long before pensioners in Stevenage are talking of revolution.

The question is who's revolution, that of an insurgent left or a faux revolution sealing of the power of the right with a new generation.

Anonymous said...

"Most people - the large majority - do not in fact want a revolution"

That is both obvious and irrelevant. The Labour Party rejected revolutionary politics from the beginning, so no one expects that of it. The problem now is that Labour (or rather the faction that has regained control of the party) has also largely abandoned reformism.