Labour ministers are revolting.
So, too, are Labour backbenchers.
Ministers who have fought for so long to get into office will not accept the instruction that their job is to deliver cuts and not change. Of course, they are sending less-than-compliant messages to Rachel Reeves, and there is nothing Starmer can do to help her. If enough are doing this, there is nothing he can do to discipline them. Right now, his authority is at a very low ebb with them: a reshuffle is a long way off, and they know it.
His problem with backbenchers is even bigger. Take Rachel Maskell, MP for York Central since 2015. Her days as a shadow minister are over. She has not made it as the real thing. You can be sure she knows she never will get ministerial office now. So, she is leading the rebellion against the removal of the winter fuel allowance payment from most pensioners.
Why is she doing that?
One, because of her in-principle objection.
Two, because there are almost five years to go to an election, she has nothing to lose by doing so.
Three, if she doesn't take this issue on now, then Labour austerity will guarantee she will lose her seat anyway.
Four, Starmer has already made himself look stupid by suspending some of his MPs, and he can't keep doing it, so the risk of sanction is tiny.
So, five, she has nothing to lose.
And, again, Starmer is completely on the back foot with absolutely nowhere he can go in the face of justified criticism for adopting a policy that pleases no one.
This, though, for him is just the beginning. He's already making a habit of this.
His Gaza policy has also appealed to no one.
His 300 or more backbenchers, plus most of his ministers, must be choking every time they try to defend the continuing utterly unnecessary two-child cap.
And if Reeves really does deliver an austerity budget, outright rebellion is going to be very hard to contain.
A very big, very shallow majority that leaves most Labour MPs realising that they probably have only one go at this and that Reeves and Starmer are already determined to lose them their seats at the next election presents Starmer with a nightmare that his policy of triangulation simply cannot manage.
Starmer has no room for fence-sitting. It's already clear he must govern as Labour, or he and Reeves, and Labour itself will have their days numbered unless, that is, Labour dispenses with them both, and don't rule that out.
Starmer has to be a visionary with considerable charisma and a bold deftness of touch to hold together the situation he has created. It is already clear that he is possessed of none of those characteristics and that his MPs, and maybe his ministers, know it.
Starmer already looks like a lame-duck prime minister, buffeted by storms, some of which are of his own creation. Things can only get worse for him.
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The Government should not be allowed to pressure MPs into how they vote, it is undemocratic.
Implementing sanctions is authoritarian. MPs work for us.
I agree with your analysis. The line now being taken is that the government were left with a mess which Labour has to clear up and that means tough choices. Yes the previous government left a mess but it could be cleared up without the policy changes announced and probably planned. They are making choices somewhat similar to those made by the coalition government in 2010. They have other options which they are refusing to contemplate. You have put forward options and there are others in terms of cutting expenditure on more roads and charging more for environmentally damaging activities.
Blaming the Conservatives for all the wrong policies now being adopted or proposed may appear to Keir Starmer and his cabal as a good move, but I suspect that many voters who do not trust politicians will just see this for what it is, a cynical moved designed to deflect criticism of the same old tired, tested and inappropriate austerity, free-market focused approach.
It is obvious that their support amongst the electorate is low and the only reason they gained power – apart from the outdated electoral system – is that many voters could not stomach another period of Conservative government. But by following the path they have chosen, they are only adding to voters belief that the main parties have failed, leaving the door open to Reform UK to build support.
It also seems that unlike the election of the Labour government in 1997, there is little enthusiasm amongst people who did not vote labour. I felt in 1997 that there was a positive feeling about Labour then amongst many voters which does not exist now.
What I find worrying is the number of people who voted Labour and still defend them despite the inanity of their statements and comments. Lucy Powells comments about cutting the Winter Fuel Allowance to save the economy are ridiculous. She should have resigned or been fired for stupidity!
So we can expect a period of turbulence, masked by the Labour majority in Parliament (they forget that a majority of the voters rejected them), with increasing concern, annoyance and outright hatred. Its not surprising that this government is failing, Starmer, Reeves and Rayner are 4th-5th rate politicians and clearly not up to the job!
Spot on.
It seems like neo-Liberalism has hit a giant roadblock. Each party has derided the other during election campaigns and promised to do better especially to do better with things that people need like education and health care but once elected they all resort to the tired old excuses that there is no money If only one party would take the giant leap and admit that they can create the money but but… they just cant do it!! Is it because they genuinely don’t know they can create it despite the experience of “quantitative easing” during the pandemic” or are they so tied to economic orthodoxy that they just cant bring themselves to break free. I wonder what they fear more; the bad effects of austerity on the parties popularity or fear of being widely derided by the financial press for what would actually be courage but would be seen as recklessness.
Whatever else you think of Blair he at least had a certain charisma, Starmer has neither Charisma or the sort quite confidence you want from a Doctor or AA mechanic who you hope will sort you out
John – I like a lot of your posts but Blair? ‘Charismatic?
No, look – when I look back, Tony Blair had a sweaty, evangelical air about him – he seemed committed to change, social justice etc., and did do some good things but I think much aided by some of the talent in the Labour party (Mo Mowlem, Robin Cook, so many others).
Have you seen the film ‘Network’ (1975)?
My contention was that Blair was and still is the ‘Howard Beale’ of British politics because his zesty evangelicalism was turned by the dark forces of the market and hyper-individualism and he has ended up being part of the whole charade.
However, unlike the Beale character in the film, I do not think that Blair’s corrosive influence is going to be cut short anytime soon. It lives on – I mean have you seen Wes Streeting?
Eugh……………….
I have to disagree
Blair had charisma
And then he shattered the illusion
A bit like Bill Clinton
Charisma, I consider to be nothing more than a vice. Once it becomes conscious of itself, it soon enough either reveals its close dependence on narcissism, or moves on to its natural full maturity; hubris.
It is of course a powerful weapon in politics; that is because politics is easily corrupted and charisma is an effective, and cheap substitute for thought, action or policy. It serves best thoughtless, self-serving and corrupt government.
Wow.
You know I never saw that in Blair at all Richard.
I used to wonder how he’d had such a meteoric rise – where he had come from.
He seemed sincere about things but not in the detail. I’m not saying that I am more sagacious or anything like that.
You see back then, I voted for the Labour party – not Blair. I voted on a point of faith by the way.
But I had this feeling that he was not really there? That behind his face, that he was a bit empty. That he would have been happy to be a leader anywhere.
From Blair’s interview with the ever so challenging Geordie Greig…..
“Power should be based on a desire to do something that you believe as a matter of conviction and principle.
But, if you are being honest the power itself is attractive.
It doesn’t mean you should pursue it at the expense of the principle, but your wanting to exercise leadership in the exercise of power is what goes with it,” he explains.
His motive when he was young, he says, was always “to change the world, to put principles into practice, to be respected and recognised as a person with power and to feel that power, to feel how it could shape my world around me as well as the world of others”.
“The moment I saw what power was and what it could do, I wanted it.”
Not really a fan of Platonic epigrams but its uncanny… he could have been writing about Blair and his close continuing relationship with hubris. (he sees “protecting his legacy” as a goal of the TBI)
“Only those who do not seek power are qualified to hold it”
“Those who seek power are not worthy of that power”
@ John Boxhall
Blair had charisma like Trump has charisma. (Well…and Margaret Thatcher too)
Let’s not go down the route of reductio ad hitlerum, but I’m told he had massive charisma and the atmosphere crackled when he entered a room.
(Finger down throat gesture)
“The prime minister has told the BBC that his new government is “going to have to be unpopular” and make tough decisions in order to bring reforms.
Defending his decision to remove winter fuel payments from most pensioners, he said previous governments had “run away from difficult decisions” and Labour could only keep its promises if he acted in his first few months in office.”
Aye, but the ‘tough decisions’ don’t involve the wealthy, their donors and pals, paying their fair share. It involves the young and the old being punished for being young and old!
As for the revolt, I’ve read only about 30 intend to vote against the Labour government’s measure on making the poor poorer. Just 30 with principles or is it worry for their own skins and jobs?
I am not sure I have as much confidence in the independence of mind (or just fear of personal voter rejection) of Labour (or any backbenchers). Britain didn’t reach the state we are in through independence of mind.
I am more persuaded by the standards now clearly set by Tony Blair for Government. If you expect that governments are not going to create Grenfells, Blood scandals or Post Office scandals in their wake, as the natural order of things, then you are seeking “perfection”; and you simply aren’t going to receive it. Ever.
What you will receive in Government is Britain’s conventional standard of behaviour; based on the elected’s general ignorance, selfishness and downright stupidity; to say nothing of the routine submission to the higher goals of dishonesty, deception, lying and fraud. Now that I can recognise as the real face of British politics.
Starmer doubled down this morning on ‘being prepared to become more unpopular’ – and take the ‘difficult decisions’ so as to to deal with the crisis .
You couldnt really make it up – he is utterly unprepared to think the ‘difficult thoughts’ as to whether his ‘unpopular decsions’ are the ‘right decisions’ to dig us out of the crisis .
As they are the precise opposite of what is required , its like observing the slow public suicide of a leader and his political party.-
This is how sofa government works – or rather, does not work – the ‘cabinet’ is who have been captured by vested interests (in their own interests of gaining power) whereas those on the outside on the inside of government are bound to have a different view.
It simply does not work does it?
And organisations tend to work like this too.
Rubbish.
I’m angry so do not apologise for my language.
No honeymoon for Herr Scammer now fully revealed as a fake great knight dope.
I did warn continuously about it. Now the mainstream media will go into overdrive to memory hole all the promises. To ignore all the protests and to vilify and propagandise for the gestapo state, fascist , Zionist mass murder supporting with their media presstitutes.
Yesterday I attended the Palestine March in central London- tens of thousands, I’d say over 100k and the BBC failed to report it AT ALL!
Go search for it on their site – nothing! As if it didn’t happen. No one turned up. The Knightsbridge streets weren’t disrupted. The rich tourist didn’t enjoy the spectacle and didn’t take lots of photos and videos as they marvelled at the turnout and the vast demographic representation.
The Mockingbird LauraKoftheCIA head girl for the western media owners at the BBC, no stranger to deepstate connections – apparently is ‘interviewing’ the GKD this morning- her usual soft focus style no doubt that she effectively used on Bozo when he was ushered in as election winner with the dodgy Xmas ge and postal vote fraud.
If you haven’t – cancel your licence fees – a tax you pay to be propagandised to! The BBC has long lost all semblance as a unbiased, uncensored , news journalism site.
Parliamentary revolt will spread to the streets through the alternaative news media – we will not be ignored in OUR streets and neighbourhoods. Masked paramilitary police will not roam with impunity and take away reporters and local activists.
Time to make a choice of which side to support is here sooner than many thought.
I posted this, but with hesitation. I think we need less emotion and more argument and have serious reservations about this approach.
It is your Blog Richard, but I think your hesitation was the better call.
Noted
You did well to post. And well to hesitate, (which I understand) but posting was right. There is growing anger out here.
Dun groaning has not done groaning (unless I am very much mistaken) and he’s not alone.
Sorry, DunGroanin, but there are two epigrammatic song titles which come to mind, both of which might confirm your worst fears :-:
The Machine Demands a Sacrifice
The Revolution Will Not be Televised
Assuming they want to win the next election, Starmer and Reeves are gambling that making the so-called difficult and unpopular decisions now will produce positive results within four or so years. What are they going to do if the narrow GDP growth they want – and upon which it seems everything else is contingent – does not arrive, just as it hasn’t for the governments implementing similar policies in the previous decade or so? Are they assuming that the Conservatives are so unelectable that they have no chance at the next election?
It is going to take a lot of time to fix any of the problems that have been stewing since 2010. Schools and teachers, hospitals and healthcare workers, social care, housing, prisons and police and courts, rail, water, electricity, defence, the environment, everything that local authorities do on a shoestring (not just the statutory responsibilities, but everything that makes life worth living, such as libraries and parks and street cleaning and public toilets and so on). There are serious problems everywhere.
The government taking unpopular decisions, demanding more tax, and delivering less in public services, is not a long term proposition for any elected government.
One small quibble: libraries are a statutory responsibility.
Yes they really are. The title of your blog post says it all.
In the period 1945 to approximately 1975 there was a consensus in much of the capitalist West that the best defence against the “communist threat” was “social democracy”, and what came to be known as the “welfare state”.
While some Western politicians were undoubtedly motivated by idealism, it’s also plausible that the western establishment/power structure (a rose by any other name!) acquiesced because they were fearful that unless they made some serious concessions to the service-men and -women who served in World War II, who had learned how to handle weapons and who had returned home determined that there would be no return to the dreadful conditions of the 1930s, left-wing influence would grow and might even result in violent revolution.
But as the years passed and as that generation grew older, the fear began to dissipate, so that by the late 1970s the powers-that-be felt able to initiate a political/social/ideological/media process designed to enable them to gradually claw back as many as possible of the gains conceded to the general population in the decades of the “post-war consensus”.
That trend accelerated following the demise of the Soviet Union and has continued to the present day, so that the “historic compromise” between capital and labour that we call the welfare state has gradually been unpicked, in all the relevant areas: wages, conditions, pensions, housing, health, social care, water, energy, transport – you name it.
For the last four decades or so we have had the new consensus, neo-liberalism, one that will be difficult to overcome or reform, since by now its tentacles reach into practically all aspects of our society and mainstream media. The Labour Party of Starmer and Reeves shows no signs of breaking with this consensus and in fact there is every indication that they are not looking beyond it for solutions to the problems besetting our society.
There are pockets of resistance, such as Richard’s website, but the totalitarian instincts of the powers-that-be are already beginning to threaten freedom of thought, expression and assembly. Truly, it’s as if Orwell’s novel ‘1984’ is no longer being treated as a dreadful warning but rather as an instruction manual.
Unless the Western ruling class reins in its greed and once more acquiesces to economic and social concessions to the general populace, then what we can expect is ever more social unrest, racist and religious scapegoating, authoritarianism, censorship and very likely more wars, as an attempted distraction.
This morning I was struck by this insight:
“…those who make a populism of the Left impossible will make a populism of the Right inevitable.” https://aurelien2022.substack.com/p/the-machine-stops
By making socialists and socialist ideas so unwelcome in the Labour Party, the Starmer-Mandelson-Blair faction are creating the very conditions that Farage (and worse) needs in order to rise to power.
Much to agree with
Starmer is failing in all the ways it was blatantly obvious he would. His lack of fitness for office is there for all to see. In seven weeks he has trashed any thin credibility he had. He will quickly be detested by the electorate, forces to the right of him, and by the majority of MPs who have to work under him. He’s a man without any of the political skills needed to manage the impending threats his self-made disasters will produce, other than to assert his authoritarian instincts even further. He will try to bully his party into line, but only succeed in making more enemies. I think some reckoning is inevitable. His personal authority is bound up with the popularity of the Labour party as a whole, and that is set to slump. Labour will quickly find itself in very deep trouble, its leader flailing. The route to power was plotted without vision or foresight and was handled badly. It is a most depressing situation.
Hi PSR @ 09:33 yesterday. Good to see you back in full flow!
Your question:- “I used to wonder how he’d had such a meteoric rise – where he had come from.”
My answer (others are available):- from the sad, early demise of John Smith; a Leader with humility as well as great ability.
Had Blair been schooled in the works of Robert Burns (as was Smith) perhaps the hubris to which John Warren refers would have been mitigated.
Words, written by Burns in rememberance of his friend William Muir of Tarbolton, are applicable to the life of John Smith.
“An honest man here lies at rest,
The friend of man, the friend of truth,
The friend of age, and guide of youth:
Few hearts like his, with virtue warm’d,
Few heads with knowledge so inform’d;
If there’s another world, he lives in bliss;
If there is none, he made the best of this.”
Well said.
I remember John Smith’s death as if it were yesterday and I still have an original copy of his Commission for Social Justice report which was very promising back in the day.