We finally know what Labour is going to do. These pledges are being launched today:
The first is statement any government could make.
The second would be the objective of any party at present.
The third has had £75 million allocated to it, a sum so small that it would hardly feature in national accounting.
No one really knows what the fourth means. But it is definitely not nationalisation and so how it changes anything very much is hard to tell.
The fifth is another platitude any government would say.
And the last is the clearest evidence of the lack of ambition Labour suffers from. Data suggests that there are about 25,000 schools in the UK, but if these only a little under 22,000 are in England. Starmer will have no control over the rest. He seems to have forgotten that. And his offer will, in any event provide fewer than one in three schools in England with a new teacher, presuming he is talking net numbers. That's really not going to change anything that much.
Now let's note what is missing. There is nothing on
- climate change,
- investment,
- defence,
- law and order beyond anti-social behaviour,
- social care,
- reducing inequality,
- restoring workers' rights,
- reversing the attacks the Tories have launched on those with disabilities,
- human rights including the right to protest,
- electoral reform,
- devolution,
- relationships with Europe and trade,
- or almost anything else that might really matter to people.
In summary, Labour wants office on the basis of three platitudes, two commitments to reform that appear almost inconsequential and an offer of a few more teachers that he cannot deliver throughout the UK. As for everything else, we will remain as much in the dark as we have ever been.
Does Starmer think we're stupid, or is he?
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“We finally know what Labour is going to do.”
But do we ?
Whatever happened to Starmer’s original Ten “Pledges”, far less vacuous than v2.4.. ?
https://www.clpd.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Keir-Starmers-10-Pledges.pdf
They were vastly better
Apart from number 4, they all look like Sunak pledges. Platitudes.
Interesting to note that in none of Starmer’s pledges (the current 6 and old 10) is housing mentioned-the biggest, and ongoing longest disaster in Britain of the last 45 years.
Re Starmer’s original 10 pledges. The pledge on common ownership is remarkable. More support now for it than ever before after the privatisation disasters of the last five years.
I get the impression from Starmer that he seems to think that new stronger laws and better regulation, is the answer to many problems, but he overlooks one thing. If and when the Tories get back in, these will be easy to change. Now, let’s say water was taken back in to public ownership. I don’t think there is a cat in hells chance the Tories could get away with privatising it again. Not after all that has happened. There would be little support for it. The Tories can change laws and regulations, often without the mandate to do so, privatisation is a different matter.
Starmer, like the Tories, has totally misread the mood of the public.
If there is one thing, we don’t want it is more of the same.
Whatever you may think of ‘Momentum’, they were quick to point out the U-turning, watering-down and general ‘limpness’ of today’s ‘major announcement’:
https://twitter.com/PeoplesMomentum/status/1791020246943326529
The man’s a clueless clown which was pretty much apparent to me from the get go. New new labour or more accurately the CCP have nothing to offer other than hollow soundbites and clumsy posturing. They seem to think they can scold their critics into submission – witness Lisa Nandy to Grace Blakeley on Question Time last week. If and when the buck stops with them they will be running scared of an increasingly angry and frustrated electorate. Where we go from there is anyone’s guess.
In his first pledge, delivering economic stability, Starmer is promising something he certainly can guarantee to deliver; it’s beyond his control.
I assume economic stability includes stable, low, inflation. Presumably that would include the recent transient inflationary episode that is now ending. But our recent inflation was caused by external world events, the aftermath of the pandemic and war in Ukraine. It affected most countries. It was not within the control of individual governments (although the effects could have been better ameliorated). The response was to raise interest rates, which was ineffective and made matters worse, even increasing inflation. And this response was by the Bank of England, currently independent, not controlled by, the government.
External events may well induce other inflationary episodes, which are beyond the government’s control.
I have little respect for a prospective prime minister promising something he knows he cannot deliver.
Hi Tim – apologies for being the grammar police – I’m sure it is ‘cannot’ in the first line.
Overall today’s blog entry and the responses are depressing because of the lack of ambition shown by Keir Starmer who is no doubt very capable and has principles (I know someone who worked with him) but all this appears to have disappeared in a fog of nothingness, other than a desire to purge any left of centre thinking from the higher echelons of the Labour Party, and to take advice instead from Tony (history will show I was right) Blair and co.
It is all very sad.
Thanks for the correction 🙂
To me this is not so much a right wing list as a vacuous list, hardly anything at all.
Sadly I think we have this inadequate leader for five years. 🙂
That should have been a sad emoji at the end.
Yikes, two errors in one day.
Regrettably, I only see Sir Keir Starmer’s brilliance as a political limbo dancer, setting forever lower bars and then claiming success in that he can under-reach all of them.
In practice he really is a nihilist, a non-achiever, but party spin and marketing is somewhat self congratulatory about that..
Keynes insisted that stable and moderate interest rates were crucial in achieving economic stability for both business and savers.
The only way we’re going to get that is by dumping the BoE’s monetary policy committee which is so remote from the actual economy but also hidebound by economic groupthink. (RIchard has repeatedly made these points).
If SKS / RR reversed Brown’s policy of convenience, so that both monetary and fiscal policy and management were re-integrated then that alone would improve economic stability, and he can box tick one of his ‘pledges’.
Starmer, the man of hidden shallows…
Massive lead in the polls he’s got. Starmer will have been guided by the TBI here (you can see that nod to education*3) and worked out that saying a little but also as little as possible will keep him ahead.
Good grief! Is that really what Labour thinks are the six most important priorities for the next five years? Imagine… Starmer and his team must have thought long and hard before ‘revealing’ this list. What passes for intellect at Labour HQ?
It’s depressing that Starmer’s team produce such utter garbage.
“Does Starmer think we’re stupid, or is he?”
Gentle readers can decide if Starner is Sooty or Sweep. The question is: who is Harry Corbett & whoever it is, they are sure that Uk citizens are mugs.
As for “Does Starmer think?” well not for himself, that function has been outsourced – I wonder where.
Relevant: tax collection: US multinationals sales in the UK account for 25% of GDP. Many/most/all of those sales are channeled through tax havens. Profits amounted to $88bn
(figures for Italy, Spain, France Germany: 5%, 6%, 7%, 9%). UK a partially owned US subsidiary. (source: Vassal State).
The Starmer/Reeves axis talks about growing the economy – given the above does that mean growing the US economy?
I was somewhat dissapointed they did not use the phrase “strong & stable” – one could then have mistaken LINOs advertisement as one for toilet paper.
Thank you, Mike.
Further to vassals and support for the US economy, the UK and Japan are big buyers of US Treasury Bills this month, as many countries, including China, sell theirs. Much of the proceeds from the sale of the UK’s gold, under Brown*, were invested in USTs.
Brown is obsessed with the US. He would return from summer holidays in New England and IMF spring and autumn meetings, where he met the likes of Larry Summers and Alan Greenspan, and give a read out to EcoFin, telling peers they should emulate the US, and, when others spoke, remove his headphones and get on with other work.
🙂
Ah – thank you Colonel Smithers. Guardian reported as much back in the 1990s.
Obviously grooming needs to be repeated if it is to be successful.
It is also good to see confirmed that cognitive dissonance was always a feature of the Brown operation.
In fairness, he would doubltess have got confused if he had heard other dissenting voices.
BTW: did Richard give you my details?
I think I did…
Thanks for this. Brown’s obsession with the economic culture of the US and Starmer’s subjugation to the same explains so much that is going wrong with UK’s social structures. Why is it so difficult for so many in politics to comprehend actual historical socio cultural differences between modern nation states and how economics are both a result and reflection of such differences ? Crazy people. In line with Blair’s government’s cack handed top down imposition of a simplistic bad xerox version of US multicultural theory to ‘solve’ the sectarianism in Northern Ireland back in the late 1990s combined with injecting vast amounts of money into ‘transitioning’ paramilitaries. Anyone with half a brain and a working heart could foresee the result would simply be the strengthening of Troubles created criminals and the creation of their present day Dragon’s Teeth.
The Irish Times ran an interesting article yesterday on the Northern Ireland General Strike of 1974. Ironically, an historical turning point favouring the ruling class use of divide and rule tactics to destroy worker’s solidarity in Northern Ireland.
https://www.irishnews.com/news/northern-ireland/ulster-workers-council-strike-it-should-never-have-happened-says-trade-unionist-uel-adair-TV66C4RNKNHFVFXHKL6S5MXY5Y/
I’ve just ordered that book. Looks like you’ve done my reading for me!
Unfortunately, Starmer is simply too stupid (or too cynical) to understand what needs to be done. Reeves has told him we can’t afford anything so he doesn’t think we can.
As an example of this, Pat McFadden has just been interviewed on the Today programme and fundamentally claimed that we can’t afford to remove the 2 child benefit cap to reduce child poverty!
Poverty of thinking and poverty of understanding from the ‘Labour’ leadership.
As an aside, Amol Rajan gave McFadden a good grilling about Starmer’s many U-turns and he could only respond in the same sort of detail-free platitudes we have heard from a multitude of Tory ministers over the past Parliament.
There ain’t going to be any worthwhile improvements under this shabby bunch.
That 2 child cap retention is shameful
Labour are probably petrified of headlines claiming them to be soft on benefits or some such. Spouting vacuous nonsense gives Murdoch little to work with so I imagine they’ll stick with it till the election’s won.
Thanks for the info on MacFadden & the Toady programme. I will weaponise this for use by Independent candidates.
Probably with a graphic.
LINO happy to take donations from high-networth individuals; Happy that children in the Uk go hungry.
What struck me about this list is how right-wing it is. If you took away the logo, the red text and just presented this as a plain list I would have though “Reform”, or some other right-wing party.
It is also just so low-bar… 6,500 teachers (I note it appears at the end of this very short list). In England alone in 2022/23 there were 24,442 schools. That’s one teacher for every four schools.
I hope he’s finished, and very quickly, we need more ambitious government; I fear continued mismanagement will put us in a position from which it is not possible to recover.
Thank you, Oliver.
I fear the situation is no longer recoverable and know young families and young professionals without family responsibilities drifting overseas, often where their parents or grandparents migrated from.
Oliver:-
Perhaps your first paragraph is the real reason for Starmer welcoming Natalie Elphicke as the Labour MP for Dover; and his refusal to welcome Diane Abbott back into the Parliamentary Labour Party. It also pushes me into voting Green.
Unless it is covered by “electoral reform”, might it be worth adding “political donations” to your excellent list?
Good point
Starmer is wedded to market capitalism as the source of all goodies that’s it! A Tory through and through! His supporters really just ill-informed tribalists verging on “ideological racism” if you can say such a thing. Yesterday I stumbled across a free online book by an anthropologist Jason Hickel called “Less is More” and read his final chapter “Everything is Connected” which in turn provided me with the thought that not understanding how your country’s monetary system really works like Starmer and his crew is simply anti-ecological.
https://dl1.cuni.cz/pluginfile.php/1179270/mod_resource/content/1/Jason%20Hickel%20-%20Less%20is%20More.pdf
Thanks for the reference.
How to achieve degrowth, and how we bring economies in line with environmental and resource capacities ought to be the biggest question, assuming society doesn’t implode during the climate transition.
Given institutional inertia and pushback from vested interests, it will be a long lead in for any systematic change to become embedded.
@ Schofield:
Thank you for this link.
You may also be interested in this speech published on 01.05.2024:
Speech by Jason Hickel, Professor at ICTA-UAB and Visiting Senior Fellow at LSE, at the 50th Anniversary Congress in Havana.
https://progressive.international/blueprint/1f26392c-176d-405e-948e-75a6333edc45-climate-energy-and-natural-resources/en
Thank you and well said, Richard.
With regard to teachers, and on other occasions, police, when Starmer and the shadow Treasury and Business teams have made that pledge, they have elaborated that they mean classroom assistants and community support officers.
Richard and readers may have noticed the photo of Starmer, wearing glasses and sleeves rolled up. At other times, Starmer is dressed in dark colours. The PR advisers are working overtime to get his imagery right, the former showing someone knuckling down and the latter to slim him.
Keir Starmer seems to be governed by fear – mainly fear that Labour’s large poll lead will evaporate in the next six to eight months if anyone says “boo” to a goose. The lack of courage and ambition is palpable. “It won’t be quite so bad” is hardly a stirring message.
There is absolutely a point that an opposition does not get to implement any of its policies (unless the government steals them) and so Labour needs to win the next election. The calculus appears to be that the left has nowhere else to go (false – the Greens and others will be snapping at Labour’s heels, but FPTP helps Labour here) and that there is more to play for in the centre/centre-right. And there is more to lose from negative reaction to any policies of substance than to gain from presenting an attractive proposition. It is pathetic, even apathetic.
Perhaps bland managerialism will be enough to win the next general election but Starmer should be hoping for 10 to 15 years in power. God know how Starmer possibly hopes to win the election after next. The Conservatives will take some time to regroup but they will come back fighting.
Much to agree with
When even the LDs are starting to look more left wing than Labour (or rather when Labour has moved firmly to the right of the LDs), there are certainly several parties to which Labour voters could defect. Starmer is playing a dangerous game when he ignores his party’s traditional base, and I can’t see that this strategy is going to win more votes than it loses.
Timorous tinkering and vacuous platitudes.
Back in 2019 I got into a big row in my local Labour Party about Starmer. Already knowing about David Evans (Gen Sec) and a few other backstage (aka backstabbing) actors, I disputed Starmer’s intent. Accused of being an extremist (aka Wilsonian Labour type) and disgusted with the restrictions of speech imposed by Evans, I left.
It is sad to witness the denials, silences and cognitive contortions that remaining members go through to justify continuing their membership. Defensive isn’t the word! I am also now accused of being an extremist for mentioning Gaza. Where has the decency and humanity in Labour gone?
Where has the decency and humanity in Labour gone?
It evaporated between the 1990s & 2015 & was completely gone by 2020 – 2024 in the reign of Keir “Baby Steps” Starmer.
John, if you would like to join a bunch of Indys you are welcome. Richard will give you my details if you ask him.
Let me know John
Decency left the Labour Party a long time ago. What would be beneficial this coming election if for Independent candidates along with the smaller parties gaining seats and having a voice (even if ignored) at Westminster. It won’t stop Labour winning but it could give the electorate confidence in future elections to break away from the evil 2.
Dear Kier,
Your chief lieutenant believes that ordinary people know best.
In my experience ordinary people want decent:
paid jobs
job opportunities
housing
schooling for their children, grandchildren
environment to live in
health and health service, not one being broken up to be handed over to US companies
infrastructure that works for their benefit
welfare system
Now you are going to say “we can’t afford it”. Have a chat with President Biden’s team to ask how they funded their huge programmes.
By the way with a sovereign currency, provided you do not stoke inflation, the UK can afford it by doing what the US has done, issue the money.
Best wishes.
John
Starmer has never made the effort to research how the UK monetary system really works despite plenty of examples that contradict the Thatcher lie that government has no money of its own, two world wars, 2008 GFC bailout, and Covid economy support. Rachel only has to whisper in his ear the country can’t afford it and he reverts to being a little timid schoolboy!
By coincidence I’m researching this today so we can handily remind ourselves of how needed money may be and has been conjured from nowhere when the occasion demands (The FT – Bank of England to directly finance UK government’s extra spending) making demonstrable nonsense of Reeves’ suggested policies https://web.archive.org/web/20200409173306/https://www.ft.com/content/664c575b-0f54-44e5-ab78-2fd30ef213cb
Agreed
As a former human rights lawyer who, in answer to questioning about Israel’s cutting off of food, water, fuel and medical aid to Palestine, said: “Israel has the right to self defence.” Is there any need to take seriously anything that Starmer says? He will tell whatever lies he thinks will get him in power and will no doubt continue in this course.
Where are the thinkers in today’s msm? Are there any? There’s an occasional heterodox article in the FT, but they quickly revert to neoliberal type. Owen Jones speaks his mind in the Guardian but there’s little else there. I read the most abysmal item from Martin Kettle claiming that behind the scenes a “reset” is being planned. After I stopped laughing I got mad. How does such shallow thinking get printed?
The only real thinking seems to occur in blogs and comments like this one and a few others which haven’t been captured. Big money doesn’t want and won’t allow big thinking in politics or the MSM, it seems to me. Depressing.
Thank you to Mike and Richard, above, with regard to my details.
Richard has shared. I’m happy for Richard to share mine, too, and will let Richard know.
Much against my better judgement (that voting under FTPT only encourages the bastards) I am being drawn back again into local electoral politics. It could be helpful to be put in touch with Mike Parr and his efforts. Thank you.
Done
I almost can’t be bothered to waste energy on this absolutely underwhelming, uninspiring and simplistic and nonsense, particularly as so many others have already picked it apart and flagged it for what it is.
But one point I will make is this: Starmer says this will take two terms. Really!!!
With the exception of ‘economic stability’ – which he may have little or no control over – the rest is so straightforward in policy terms that if there’s no change in one term (4 years) then clearly Starmer et al have absolutely no idea how to govern. Indeed, back in the day when I taught this stuff to final year undergrads I’d have set my seminar groups the task of coming up with an actual policy, an implementation plan and a realistic timetable – and they would have.
Furthermore, on this point (timescale) and the lack of ambition and scale of the mountain of shite ushering forth on ANY announcement about public policy is all the more visible, when – as one of your other commentors points out – Starmer and co only have to look across the pond at Biden’s administration and what they’ve achieved in their 3+ years in office.
Finally, I have to say that this is the absolute last straw for me regarding the Labour party. I was a member for years, and left over Iraq, but otherwise have always voted Labour, particularly when tactical voting required where I live. But not any more. However much I hate the Tories (and I really do) new, New Labour are now beyond the pale – and then some.
A great deal to agree with
Modus operandi lie your little socks off that you support the party’s ten key pledges to get the leadership then abandon most of them and replace with vacuous platitudes knowing the ruling Tory party is so vile and incompetent most voters won’t notice the sleight of hand so desperate are they to get rid of the Tories. As the old adage reflects many voters can’t walk and chew gum at the same time!
I like this reply – Ben Jennings on Keir Starmer’s ‘first steps for change’ – cartoon
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/picture/2024/may/16/ben-jennings-on-keir-starmers-six-steps-for-a-labour-campaign-cartoon#img-1
We all know how well we can trust starmer and his pledges.
The more I see of him,the more I become convinced he is a right wing plant. Inserted with the intention of alienating labour’s core demographic and destroying the parties future chances.
I would hate to be correct, but with his lack of ambition and the way he has allowed corporations to invigle themselves at the heart of labour and the way he has promoted the most right wing of labour politicians. I suspect they will be such a monumental disappointment and failure in government, and responsible for the final destruction of the NHS that at the election following this next one they will be wiped out.
I am still in Labour, even though its only the shell of a party. FPTP in this part of London points to voting Labour – although for Richard in Ely and East Cambridgeshire -the predicted Lab/Lib split could keep Tories in. (Lab had almost double the Lib Dms in 2019).
Starmer ‘pledges’ all very depressing and pathetic – as Richard and everyone here says, but it’s clear he thinks presenting a vanishingly small target for the Mail/Sun/Telegraph is all that matters. Thats why he doesn’t want to re-instate Abbot – against all semblance of natural justice – ‘Far left Anti Semite Welcomed Back into Labour’.
The Kettle Guardian piece claiming a revolutionary reset in government will occur with a Labour win – is only sort of true within the shallow terms he sets himself – the jockeying for position between top civil servants and potential ministers.
If Starmer had vowed to clean up corruption in politics – reducing/eliminating private political donations, second jobs , slashing the Lords, revolving door appointments – it would have gone down very well with the public – and would have cost nothing.
If he had promised a consumer charter for all service suppliers with minimum service levels for complaints, telephone waits etc. – simple but cost free – it would be popular and understandable, he wouldn’t do it because the corporations dont want it – again nothing to do with ‘what we can afford’.
Even within his own terms of ‘fully funding’ every promise – he could have said he was ‘setting up a commission’ to explore whether there is indeed any money , and could have harked back to post 1945 when we ‘found’ the money to create NHS and build houses. That could have at least provided a potential escape from the Reeves/Blair self- impose fiscal rule when the spending sh*t hits the fiscal fan after the election.
Thats when the showdown will occur – they won’t get away with saying to doctors nurses, police, public sector workers and to people languishing and dying on NHS waiting lists., and burgeoning homeless .. ‘wait another ten years’.
A crisis – and a showdown.
–
Interesting
Thank you
I put this here for comparison with how far we have moved since 2010. We had had the 2008 crash and Ed Balls was all about what we couldn’t afford even then, but still we got “50 steps to a future fair for all” in Labour’s manifesto
https://manifesto.deryn.co.uk/labour-manifesto-2010-a-future-fair-for-all/
Not merely a paucity of ambition, but if you observe Starmer and his LINO party in action it is obvious there will be no move away from our capitalistic thieving society.
They have abstained in the vote to make water companies legally liable for sewage pollution in water ! https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/sewage-dumping-water-companies-pollution-vote-b2545820.html thus ensuring the measure failed.
This when we have undrinkable water causing illness across Devon, and Lake Windermere now a sewage dump ! I despair.
I’m minded to think that with Starmer we have a situation directly comparable to the reign of King John of Magna Carta fame or rather infamy. John used religion as a cloak for his nefarious activities in the same way Starmer is using the Labour Party. The historian Marc Morris’s book on King John provides ample evidence for this thesis including the fact John sought to have his papal excommunication lifted. Politicians know they have to pay attention to the issue of moral authority and of course the Labour Party was established to implement moral principles especially in regard to fairness and still retain this as an historical recognition in many voters eyes.
Here are the current rules for polluting waterways:-
https://nadc.org.uk/watercourse-pollution-and-your-liability/
It’s very sad that the Labour Party under Starmer confines itself to churning out “word salad” like yesterday when it could have joined with the Liberal Democrats to tighten up the legislation on executive officers of water authorities in regard to polluting our waterways, lakes and coastline. One can only conclude that Starmer is well and truly in the pocket of big business whilst cloaking himself in what’s left of the traditional moral authority of the Labour Party. This is the action or rather inaction of scammers!
Social Housing
Not on Starmer’s first steps list. It should be because we have a serious housing crisis which has been with us for four decades.
We need a serious social house building programme if we are to reduce the level of homelessness. People should have a right to a decent home. It should be a priority for Labour, but Reeves has said not a penny of taxpayers money is going to be spent on social housing. Labour is just going to ‘support’ building affordable homes people can’t afford and is not clear as to whether it will end ‘right to buy’ which has depleted housing stock.
Can you suggest a way a social housing programme could be funded? We need some fresh and innovative ideas that Labour could buy into.
Best regards
John
See chapter 14 of the Taxing Wealth Report https://taxingwealth.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Taxing-Wealth-Report-2024-Full.pdf
“Does Starmer think we’re stupid, or is he?”
The former, I suspect. However, given his previous promises, which he ditched asap, it doesn’t matter to me what he promises – I simply don’t trust him to carry them through.