Thursday 16 May 2024

Searching for the Big Idea

 

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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