It’s barely a month
since Starmer told
us that his absolute top priority was more spending on defence and weaponry.
I noted
at the time that his ‘top priority’ seemed to change regularly, and today he’s
launched his six
key messages for the election. It’s not really surprising to note that
defence isn’t one of them. It’s one of those ‘top priorities’ which somehow
didn’t make the cut.
The six pledges
themselves are a pretty uninspiring collection at best. Two of them – relating to
health and education – are England-only pledges, two – on economic stability
and anti-social behaviour – are things which any and every party could claim as
their objectives and tell us little about the ‘how’, and the remaining two –
on setting up new bodies for energy and border security are so lacking in any
detail which distinguishes them from the present government’s policies as to be
meaningless. Describing the whole package as ‘first steps’ sounds an awful lot
like an admission that even his previous unambitious statements are now
considered over-ambitious.
Perhaps the most
revealing statement of all came from Pat
McFadden on the morning media round, who said that, “The only way you’re
going to win the next election is by appealing to people who haven’t
traditionally voted for you and who have voted Conservative … That is what the
difference between losing and winning is, and there’s nothing to be ashamed of
in that”. With one caveat, I’d even
agree with him. It’s no small caveat, though: it is that winning power is more
important than having any plan for what to do with it, or any desire to change
anything other than whose hands are on the levers of power. ‘Being in government’
has become, in effect, Labour’s only rationale and purpose.
There is, of course,
a strong argument for replacing an imploding and incompetent rabble with a
united team who can be effective, although I’ll admit to being amongst those
who aren’t entirely convinced that delivering austerity competently is necessarily
better than delivering it incompetently. Being incompetent in delivering the
wrong thing isn’t always a bad thing. They want Tories to vote for them in the belief that they’ll be better and more effective Tories than Sunak’s mob.
In fairness, that last
point about relative competence isn’t exactly a controversial proposition. It
is, though, a colossal admission of failure by Labour. Not only have they
failed to convince people that there is a better alternative, they have given
up even trying; and no longer believe it themselves. They are, instead, reduced
to peddling the idea that the best future available for us boils down to
choosing the gang which will be the least incompetent at implementing policy.
As Big Ideas go, it’s more than a little lacking.
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