I have been thinking some more about Keir Starmer's performance in the ITV leaders' debate last night, and have been noting reaction to it, both in the media and amongst those I have already spoken to this morning.
Starmer made two massive mistakes last night. Firstly, he failed to notice Rishi Sunak's bogus claim that Labour would put up taxes for the average household by £2,000, and took far too long to realise that the allegation was being made. Sunak had made this bogus claim eleven times before Starmer even appeared to appreciate the need to react. The consequence was that, like it or not, Sunak succeeded in putting Labour tax policy into the election debate.
Sunak then built on that success by challenging Starmer on whether Labour would protect pensioners from tax on their old age pension. It was absurd that he seemed unprepared for this question, or to be quite unable to respond. All he had to say was that Labour would increase personal allowances for pensioners in the event that this risk arose and the attack would have been neutered. But we all know that the spectre of Rachel Reeves hangs over him and so he lost that major point.
The consequence is that Labour will now be open to attack after attack on tax. I welcome that. This is necessary and appropriate. For a party that wants power they appear to have no meaningful tax policy for any sort. But it is ludicrous that Starmer gave ground to someone as useless as Sunak on such an issue. My concerns about Labour's suitability for office have only grown as a result.
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
“Researchers at Savanta found Sir Keir Starmer beat Rishi Sunak by 44% to 39%” (Sky News).
Second Poll. So glad I missed it. Typical British politics. Nobody wins. Everybody loses. Nobody cares. The Press call a huge victory for the Conservatives. Who knew?
Like you, John, I didn’t watch the Sunak v Starmer, having watched the STV debate involving Ross, Sarwar, Swinney and Cole-Hamilton (which inevitably turned into a pile-on of 3 Unionists against one Independence protagonist), I judged SvS to be “foreign news” I could happily do without. With today’s news in all media utterly obsessed with the SvS fracas, I think I made a sensible decision.
Sunak’s triumph didn’t last long. The accusation that there will be £2,000 of Labour tax rises for every household has already collapsed in a heap. Sunak claimed the £2,000 figure had been analysed by the Treasury. That is an appeal implying unimpeachable authority for the claim.
“…. a letter emerged from Treasury permanent secretary James Bowler which he wrote to the Labour Party to pour cold water on the claim. The figure ‘includes costs beyond those provided by the civil service and published online by HM Treasury’, he told shadow chief secretary to the Treasury Darren Jones. ‘I agree that any costings derived from other sources or produced by other organisations should not be presented as having been produced by the civil service,’ Mr Bowler added. In a scathing letter, he said: ‘I have reminded ministers and advisers that this should be the case'” (The Independent).
I think we may call this a ‘smoking gun’ moment. More important, this perfectly illustrates the level to which British politics has sunk under Sunak.
Very good
James O’Brien read out the letter on LBC radio. Then drew attention to previous Conservative lies.
Sunak is not closing the gap
And:
a) the opinion polls, and
b) Bowler’s Treasury letter on Sunak’s false tax claim:
together very effectively remind us that the British Press are almost exclusively political propaganda machines; owned largely by billionaires to guarantee that public opinion and the news agenda itself are skewed to represent their interests and the exclusion of everything else; and has absolutely no interest in the public, the public interest, the facts, or truth.
The British Press. Classy. High-minded. An example to us all.
Could it be that Starmer doesn’t have a head for numbers and Sunak knows that.
Thank you, Neal.
You may remember Diane Abbott being pilloried, including by Labour MPs, for that. Recently, I heard that Theresa May expressed sympathy with “poor Diane” when she saw it on TV.
On that memorable occasion I think Diane Abbott, who is diabetic, experienced ‘a hypo’, a low blood sugar event. Stress will often have a dramatic effect on blood sugar that can get past those who are trying to manage this condition on a regular basis. Of course her temporary brain fog was blown out of all proportion by the Tories who love to whale on Diane more than any other woman of colour in Parliament. Abbott should not have had the recent humiliation of facing deselection, but she isn’t the only target of Starmer’s ‘changed Labour’ regime. Faiza Shaheen has also been leveraged out of the party on a flimsy pretext and without any warning.
I am really glad Diane has outsmarted Starmer and his fixers trying to oust her. I have no doubt that Abbott will get very strong support in her constituency this election after winning out. We need to show Starmer that bullying does not work. I hope the other wrongly ousted former Labour MPs, including Faiza Shaheen and Jeremy Corbyn, trounce Starmer’s hand-picked yes men. He promised he would not interfere with local selection of preferred candidates, but he lied. Starmer now has a very viable challenger standing in his own constituency. I hope Andrew Feinstein, a jewish former ANC member of Mandela’s government in South Africa, can rid us of the Starmer menace.
The bullies at Labour NEC who decided, against the wishes of local constituents, not only to purge the party of Left candidates, but to parachute themselves into safe seats unelected. Much to the horror of locals, the controversial ultra Zionist Luke Akhurst parachuted himself into the constituency of North Durham over 200 miles from his home in Oxford. Akhurst’s launch event in Durham ended in violent clashes when hard-right racists attacked peaceful protesters and the police had to be called. Starmer’s factional authoritarian, undemocratic policy of ‘change’ might seriously backfire when he loses ‘safe seats’ to independent candidates.
Perhaps he didn’t like trigonometry.
Seriously I forced myself to sit through the silk suited sweaty shouters – disappointing with rude behaviour. Starmer didn’t react to the £2000 tax smear, I too thought ‘numeracy problem’, and not a quick witted Silk as I had expected.
Not a fan of either party and neither will get my vote, so watched with a neutral eye. Sunak was just Sunak – nothing new there. It seemed to me that Starmer cannot do ‘off script’ and I suspect the Tories knew that and took a gamble to attack on fiscal policies knowing he’d be robotic or not have an answer. Didn’t matter that Sunak was falsely accusing, it did the job and exposed Starmer as being very weak. What really surprised me was how few answers Starmer had – to anything. He lied about GB Energy. He obfuscated on most other matters and when he called Sunak the most liberal on immigration I just groaned. It was a race to the bottom trying to out Tory the Tories. What I have thought for sometime and last night confirmed for me is that Labour are going to be in big trouble quickly after gaining power. Their fiscal and immigration policies will not grow the economy. Reeves wants the highest GDP per capita in the G7 which will not happen under her policies. His PFI Energy wheeze will not reduce costs, especially when the majority of energy costs relate to gas and renewables will not and cannot replace that for many decades simply abuse the technologies to store do not exist and it would mean ripping out every home boiler and putting in place new infrastructure. As a strategic objective it’s fine, but it will not benefit anyone for many decades. His tough on immigration stance when we need higher immigration to offset a very aging society is naive. And his lack of policy on social care screams he has no answers. It seems to me both are craven for power and status and are utterly useless.
Linda you said this:
“His PFI Energy wheeze will not reduce costs, especially when the majority of energy costs relate to gas and renewables will not and cannot replace that for many decades simply abuse the technologies to store do not exist and it would mean ripping out every home boiler and putting in place new infrastructure”
I agree with the PFI comment ref renewables (GB Energy). Renewables can & will replace gas-gen and will do so in +/- 10 years. As for the tech to store surplus renewable electricity, these exist right now. In Sheffield sits ITM Power – a UK electrolyser manufacturer – said electrolysers convert renewable elec into hydrogen. The UK high pressure gas system is largely hydrogen ready and storage exists – the salt caverns in Cheshire (amontgst others). So all the pieces for the storaeg puzzle exist. H2-burning gas turbines – as the head of gas turbine tech @ Engie said to me the other year “change the gas train and burner cans – job done”. As for home heating – combo of heat pumps in some homes and H2-powered fuel cells in others will +/- get us to where we need to be.
Hope that helps.
On the housing question all Starmer needed to say was a massive increase in council housing and rent control. He entirely mssed out on any positive policiy to help working people, let alone pensiners.
Agreed
But remember, Rachel Reeves would have vetoed that
I know you will be able to pull me up on a number of errors and could improve on this, but here is my attempt to put context to the £2000 tax claim by Sunak.
It is also worth noting that a few commentators are suggesting that Starmer allowed the claim to be heard, knowing that they could turn this into an attack line about Sunak lying, as Labour has has the letter for a while. A barrister will often lure a witness onto the ground they want them on before delivering the final blow.
So here is my idiots argument:
Even if you take the £2090 extra tax/government spend claim at face value, which as the HMRC have now said is not true, it has to be put into context.
First it is spread over four years, so it is £500 a year or £10 a week.
Second about half, if not more will be borrowing to invest in infrastructure, so that leaves £5 a week.
Third tax is not raised as a blanket charge on each individual but the more you earn the more you pay so the £5 is reduced to closer to £3 a week for average earners.
Fourth the figure is based on household income not individual income , the average house has about 1.6 income earners, so that means that hat the average person would pay about £1.80 a week to fund the growth we need.
So this whole argument is about less than the cost of a cup of coffee a week!
That is before you think about the effect of investing in infrastructure. For each £1 invested by the government about 50p is recovered by direct taxes earned by the people employed in implementing the infrastructure work, the companies who get the contracts pay corporation tax. Individuals employed by the investments buy good and services which employ more people who in turn pay taxes and buy more services and goods to employ more people. The multiplayer effect.
So let’s reframe this argument to, would you be willing to give up one cup of coffee a week to rebuild our society and employ more people?
Nice….
I could add that the increased income to the treasury would probably buy you several cups of coffee in the future.
About the same as the net contribution to the EU.
Sorry, wrong argument. To take the last point first there are many tax payers who cannot afford to live now, let alone pay an additional 1.80 per week. They don’t buy cups of coffee.
But Labour has (allegedly) no intention of raising income tax. So what is the point of your post?
It will raise tax
Starmer put himself in a straitjacket a long time ago by announcing there’d be no taxes increases for the wealthy rather than having the nous to say there’d be a review of taxes and subsidies under his administration to ensure their was fairness and balance in both areas! Rachel Reeves I suspect will not be long in the job!
Starmer was very cautious and you probably can’t blame him given his poll lead. Those were big errors though. Should jumped all over that ludicrous £2k claim and should have pointed out only reason state pension becoming taxable is cos Sunak has frozen the PA. I’m afraid Starmer is not not very good .
It illustrates the fact that Sir Keir is not up to the job of leader of the opposition or a potential prime minister. It bodes badly for the future of government and the country.
No mention of Richard’s Taxing Wealth Report by Larry Elliott in his article today on Sunak’s £2,000 Labour tax increase despite the article mentioning the following:-
“The biggest Labour spending commitment identified by the Conservatives is the green prosperity plan (GPP). This has been watered down from an original pledge to spend £28bn on greening the economy, but Labour says it will still spend £23.7bn on the GPP in a five-year parliament. The Conservatives say this would be £19bn over four years, which is correct. Labour has not yet said how it will fund the extra spending but could probably do so by borrowing more while still sticking to its debt rule.”
I thought Larry Elliott claimed to be Green and in favour of considerably bigger government spending on tackling climate change in the UK so why not mention Richard’s Taxing Wealth Report which also points out the ability to increase government spending on other issues? Of his own choosing Larry Elliott still appears to be locked in a Neoliberal Isolation Cell!
Larry is very limited in the number of times he can mention the work of friends and groups he is associated with.
Your Taxing Wealth Report is a matter of public record because it featured in the Guardian so he can make reference to it. Taxation is at an all time record not least because of the huge amount of housing benefit paid to the private sector:-
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/jun/05/14-years-tory-housing-benefit-homelessness-poor-cities#comment-167945230
Where is Larry Elliott pointing out that taxation is high because of government money going to enrich the better off? That’s the sort of “reality check” he ought to be writing about. Why isn’t he? This after all is what Wikipedia says about him in connection with “affordable homes”:-
“Elliott, an outspoken critic of the European Union, authored articles for The Guardian such as “Brexit is a rejection of Globalisation”.[9] He stated that the British people’s decision to leave the European Union in 2016 is testament to its failure to act on its promises to protect its member states from the worst effects of globalisation, which he considers would have included the funding of more affordable homes and the provision of more employment opportunities. [10]”
I really don’t see the point of bashing Larry
I dsagree with him on some big issues, but we agree on more
But I do wonder about the etiquette of coming here to attack someone I acknowledge to be a friend
Starmer’s performance in the debate reinforced my view that he is a poor speaker and not good at thinking on his feet. Any Labour leader of the last 20 years – Blair, Brown, Miliband or Corbyn – would have done better. I’m not sure how much this matters in the long run – it’s more concerning that Labour’s policy offer in this election is right-wing and uninspiring than Starmer being tongue-tied. But it is nonetheless worth noting.
Agreed
I’m not asking you to break your friendship I’m strongly suggesting that after the colossal you put in you remind him to factor in your Taxing Wealth Report when writing about politicians and taxation issues. After all you both share the same ideals Greening the economy and creating more affordable housing at the least.
As I have alreadt explianed – there is a very real limit on his ability to mention work he is associated with in any way.
Please stop asking the impossible, and maybe read my latest post. Comments like this really do not help.