Writing at the end of last week, court chronicler Patrick Maguire had some useful advice to proffer. Labour should do what its right wing normally does, and look Down Under. A victorious election earlier this year, and polling that still puts them ahead of the Coalition is not to be sniffed at. Despite the rude intrusion of expenses scandals, they appear to be doing something right. Maguire reports that Bridget Phillipson has spent some time with the Labor Party, and she was impressed. Their secret? Bear down on the cost of living. Her behind-the-scenes advocacy for lifting the child benefit cap, and advocacy of cash transfers for parents instead of funded child care places are what she's brought to the table. And there's more!
We learn that the cost of living will be the focus of Starmer's big January speech, and the emphasis will be on what Labour has done to put pounds in people's pockets. Which, to be accurate, is what last month's budget is forecast to do. There will be more forthright language as well - Wes Streeting's "frustrations" with wonk-speak have been heard, it appears.
Could this herald a new spring for Labour? There are two problems. The first is that the party are skirting around the problem. Another big boost to the minimum wage and lifting the cap are welcome, and last week's interest rate cut also provides some relief to mortgage holders. But on price rises themselves, wages are still catching up with 2022's inflation spike. The increase in the median wage reported in April did outpace inflation, but for many people the ticking upwards of the food shop, rents, domestic energy bills, and insurance premiums makes it feel that the cost of living is too high. If Labour want to be seen as serious on this issue, they need to get more populist in their rhetoric and table legislation targetting profiteering and landlords. Measures I am sure they will never introduce.
The second is more explicitly political. The government completely lacks credibility. If the cost of living was prioritised at the beginning of Starmer's premiership, Labour would now be in a much better position. Instead we got a penny pinching move against pensioners' winter fuel payments and ministers demonstrated they could be just as entitled - and as sleazy - as the Tories by glutinously grubbing in the freebie trough. It's been downhill ever seen, except they've brought forward more policies and initiatives that have dispersed their support further. Are people in general going to start listening as government talking heads complain about the cost of living, while trumpeting their tinkering around the edges? Will the progressive support base Labour has ceded to the Greens and the Liberal Democrats get won back when other parts of the government are briefing against equalising the minimum wage, and Labour Together want to undo the thrice watered down workers' rights package?
Unfortunately, the May-time massacre in local government is nailed on, and most have already made their mind up about Starmer. But still, his replacement - provided they break with the backsliders on the right - would inherit a set of positions that might cause punters to reassess. A fresh face fronting a recognisably Labourish set of priorities could work. The Prime Minister though, this is all a bit too late for him.
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You should not need rich parents to be able to buy a house if your in FT employment. It should not only be rich kids children who will be able to undertake a university degree without years of debt. Everybody should have access to good medical and dental care. This should not be a big ask. What is the LP plan for the next 3 years and going forward their 10 year plan?
ReplyDelete'We learn that the cost of living will be the focus of Starmer's big January speech'...which will be a shopping list of announcements with a subtext of 'why aren't you bastard voters grateful?' immediately followed by yet another tack to the right.
ReplyDeleteA change of leadership may help them but I don't think it will help the country.
ReplyDeleteSome times a patient on life support cannot be revived. It would seem that Starmer and Reeves have given up hoping that there will be 'Growth, growth, growth' and are desperately trying to find a new mission. So we have had the claim that they will reduce child poverty, hoping we have all forgotten the 2 child limit, and that this is a moral mission. And now the cost of living is being promoted as their strategic objective. They seem to hope that saying they want something makes it happen.
ReplyDelete«Starmer and Reeves have given up hoping that there will be 'Growth, growth, growth' and are desperately trying to find a new mission.»
DeleteThe mission for New Labour is always continuity of thatcherism and accordingly targeting thatcherite voters as their constituency. What they are trying to find is some new story to fool a not large but still useful number of non-thatcherite to still vote for them. But their much bigger problem is that most thatcherite voters have property prices as their "vote-moving issue" and are very angry so they have been doing badly not with the non-thatcherites but with the thatcherites they target and trying to fool better the non-thatcherites is not going to get them much.
«A fresh face fronting a recognisably Labourish set of priorities could work.»
ReplyDeleteWho is going to volunteer to be another Corbyn and be martyred by the media and the BBC?
«Bear down on the cost of living.»
ReplyDeleteThere are two big problems with that:
* The recent huge surge in prices was *forecast* by the BoE and the Treasury with the transparent purpose to make wages much cheaper in real terms like similar policies in decades past.
* The people who are affected by increases in the cost of living either automatically vote the red rose/rosette out of tradition or would never dream of voting for New Labour's mandelsonian thatcherites so inflation is not going to cost them much electorally.
The real problem the Conservatives and New Labour both have is that their target constituency of affluent (mostly southern) property owners is very angry because property prices have mostly gone sideways since 2022 and this means that they cannot rely on property gains to nearly double their after tax income, reducing their living standards by far more than inflation.
The timing is clear: the Conservatives were will winning by-elections (even if they were in office) in 2021 (Hartlepool, Old Bexeley) and the Conservative vote collapsed in the 2022 by-elections (Chester, Stretford) as flatlining property prices hit them hard.
The situation with New Labour is mixed:
* Those angry thatcherite voters have been punishing the Conservatives by switching to Reform UK (their combined votes have been pretty constant at around 37-40%) and abstention and only this has meant that New Labour with a low number of votes could sweep so many seats.
* However since New Labour has failed to restart the rapid rise of property prices they are also losing the votes (mostly to abstention, some to the LibDems and Greens) of "progressive" property owners.
Unfortunately for New Labour they are no longer "team B" of thatcherism but team "C" as team "B" (and perhaps in 3 years time team "A") of thatcherism is now Reform UK.
Why isn't New Labour trying very hard to cut interest rates and increase immigration to pump up property prices again?
Sometimes I suspect that both Sunak and Starmer were rapidly elevated from total beginners in politics to the prime ministership as sacrificial pawns for a period of unpopular policies that the "whig" oligarchs decided are necessary to realign the economy before a new period of speculative excesses.