Tory selections, Starmer reflections, UK elections
Britain is heading for a Labour Government — the only danger now is Liz Truss having a total and complete personality change upon entering Number 10.
It has been clear for a few month now that the long love affair with the post-2010 Conservatives was over. But it was confirmed when a woman told the Health Secretary on live TV that he, and the Tories more widely, had done “bugger all”.
This potentially innocuous moment is revealing for two reasons. First, because it is not just health (as saw only two well during the pandemic and as we transition towards a backlog of almost nine million) where the rhetoric has not matched action.
The Government (from Cameron through to our current crop of Tories) have adopted a bizarre Comms-first approach to politics. This has involved writing headlines, getting stories on a news grid, and hoping a positive spin from the Mail means the problem is solved.
Yet, outside the Westminster Bubble this doesn’t really do much. If your father is forced to literally camp outside hospital to be seen by a medical professional you don’t actually care that Steve Barclay is getting positive briefing write-ups to avoid defenestration post-leadership-election.
Same with “woke” matters. Why won’t voters see these things that Tories complain and cry about and say: “Yes, so what are you going to do?” What answer is there for those voters?
Secondly, the incident outside the A&E was revealing because it shows this rather bizarre idea that Johnson represented a “new” Government (i.e. not Tory, or not the 2010–2016 Tory) has finally died despite Liz Truss trying to recreate the old magic (and failing).
Make way, then, for our new PM.
Liz Truss will win. I first realised this before the first 1922 meeting and a friend, formerly employed by several Tory MPs, told me that Sunak wanted “to put everyone in little boxes, he’s a Blairite,” and then praised the Fizz with Liz hostess.
Reader, Sunak is not a Blairite. But it was revealing that Tories were prepared to tell themselves these lies because they so obviously wanted to feel good, they wanted the Truss comfort blanket.
Yet, as Labour learned, telling yourselves nice lies after a hammering in the polls doesn’t change the mood music it just changes the dance — and if you’re dancing quickstep in a drum-and-bass concert you’re politically fucked.
Truss thinks of herself as Mrs Thatcher. It’s a bizarre cosplay act but it works because it projects something totally alien from what she is. She is, essentially, a joke. And not very funny either, mainly because she doesn’t know that she’s the punchline. Or maybe she does, and her persona is an act of performance art.
The constraints, however, of dressing up in the past is you think you are in the past. A past where Tories are trusted on the economy, where the economy is chugging a long nicely, and people aren’t choosing between heating and eating.
Truss, however, rails against “handouts”, is backed by a woman who thinks welfare for the poorest is causing problems in our economy, and early on was accused of not “giving a shit” about people’s personal finances. Indeed, her own words consistently undermine her claims of being a competent politician. It seems obvious but telling the voting public they’re lazy, sucks as a vote winner.
When I first started writing this blog it was a few months ago and it was going to be about how Sir Keir was, in fact, boring but it was a good thing.
The Lobby, as I have said, get bored very easily and so it was unsurprising they would start staring at Sir Keir and wondering whether he was the cause of their boredom and not their myopic outlook.
(They did it to John Smith before writing headlines about crying on his death.)
The blog was going to point out the times in which he was called boring and how silly it all was. Seeing the pathetic briefings asking his Shadow Cabinet not to call him boring annoyed me because people want boring.
It is not deliberate — he really is like this — and yet his personality is pitch perfect for the situation we find ourselves in.
Sir Keir knows this. That’s why his dismissal of the whole row (dare I say “row”?) spoke about the kind of politics we could have for ourselves. He said of “showmanship”:
“I don’t buy into the argument that politics is a celebrity business and you have to be a showman,” he says. “Politics and governing countries is a serious business. It requires focus, dedication, integrity, and application of the highest standards.
“I think the country’s a bit tired of the idea that it’s all a bit of entertainment. In the middle of a cost of living crisis, people are less interested in laughing at the Prime Minister’s jokes and more interested in what he’s actually doing to help them pay their bills.”
However, I’m not going to do that blog because its silly and events have proved my point before I put pen to paper. The focus of Starmer (as discussed previously is security) can only be delivered by a man perceived to be boring.
Similarly Sholzomat was the boring tone adopted by Olaf Sholz while Albanese refused to play the “non boring” issues of culture war the Australian press demanded. Both worked. Starmer’s own approach is also working.
While the Tory press find it hilarious to say Starmer is boring — the public tell their own pollsters they want boring, but sensible, change.
That’s why the public don’t chuckle when Truss, our Foreign Secretary, doubts whether Macron is an ally or a foe (who, by the way, basically said the same thing about our PM-in-waiting in response). They want a leader worthy of the name — and that means boring.
If only the Lobby were any good at reflecting the people outside SW1, the Tories might have clocked that attacking Starmer as boring is a terrible idea.
Indeed, before we even had the final two polls were consistently finding a bold lead by Starmer over Truss (not just Tories or Johnson).
That was before the energy crisis gifted Starmer a week he could only have prayed for.
That week a right-wing publication put out two podcasts asking where Starmer was, and how the public did not care for him anyway, but frankly it was unsporting for him to be away (on his first family holiday since 2019).
That desire for Starmer to announce policies (gleefully expected to flop by the Tories and their loyal fanboys) has come to an end after just 12 per cent of the public opposed his energy price freeze (the equivalent number of people who believe the Moon Landings were faked).
Indeed, the public have warmed to Starmer over the issue and the IFS praised Labour’s energy plan as being costed while “huge unfunded tax cuts and other promises coming from Truss (especially)” continue to undermine the Tory claims of economic competence.
The idea tax cuts for the rich will nullify the cost-of-living crisis for ordinary voters is for the birds. But that’s Truss’ line (so far) and she’s sticking to it. Can she really U-Turn on something she’s so doubled-down on? Well, she did with Brexit but…
Right now, the public are watching. And they’re not impressed. A honeymoon period is expected, according to Labour itself, but it can’t be very great. Just 28 per cent of people think Liz Truss is trusted to reduce the cost of living, versus 61 per cent who do not trust her at all on the issue.
The danger for Sir Keir’s Labour Party (allegedly flat footed) is that Liz Truss performs one of her characteristic chameleon changes and wrong foots them. Yet, currently there is only silence and playing for the cheap seats of the Tory selectorate.
The trouble with saying nothing, however, is that people get restless and they start reaching for levers you might not be willing — or able — to pull.
Half of Tory voters now want energy to be nationalised, not even Sir Keir (who ran on a pledge to bring the energy companies into public ownership) is suggesting that. Gordon Brown, however, is (in a limited way).
But, like on strikes, Sir Keir is right to sound boring, sound aloof, direct public anger at the Tories, and then swoop into radical action once in Number 10. To quote the Fabians — when I strike, I strike hard.
