Some cultures revered the bull as a symbol of virility. Others (no sniggering at the back, please) preferred the cock. Parts of the Labour party today conceptualise it in a very different way, demonstrating virility through pig-headed opposition to measures most of your supporters want to see introduced, and which everyone expects you to introduce at some point anyway.
This is baffling enough to be worth some explaining. (Not that this will necessarily help.) Last week brought the parliamentary vote on the contents of the King’s Speech – essentially, the new government’s legislative agenda for its first year. That agenda did not include moves to lose the two-child benefit cap, a George Osborne-era policy now widely blamed for an entirely avoidable increase in child policy. Scrapping the cap could lift a quarter of a million children out of poverty at a stroke; it would also cost £3.6bn a year, the sort of sum that our fiscally responsible government has pledged not to promise until it can explain where it’s coming from. Few in and around the Labour party seem happy with any of this, but we are where we are.
Predictably enough, the SNP put forward an amendment calling for the cap to be axed in a transparent attempt to split the Labour party. Equally predictably, this worked, and the new prime minister faced his first rebellion just two and a half weeks into government. It was vitally important, an unnamed government source was heard briefing the weekend before the vote, that it did not lose its first fight with the left faction of the Labour party. It was, he said – and let’s be honest, it definitely was a he – a “virility test”.
Of course, using this phrase in a political context would, in a better world, be enough to get you drummed out of public life. Even beyond that, it was a simply ludicrous thing to say. It has been a matter of weeks since the Starmer government was elected with a 174-seat majority, bigger than any administration since Tony Blair. The chances of it losing the vote on its first King’s Speech – or even facing a significant rebellion – were approximately nil.
The widespread reporting that the vote would be a “virility test”, though, encouraged everyone to treat it as such. (This may in fact have been the point.) The subsequent decision to remove the whip from the seven Labour rebels who’d voted for the SNP amendment did send an early signal that this government would brook no messing around. But it played into the hands of those who claim the leadership cares less about progressive policy than it does about kicking the left, and worse than that, it makes the government look brittle. Why would a prime minister at the peak of his political capital dignify a tiny band of rebel backbenchers by acknowledging its existence? Leave it, Keir, it ain’t worth it.
There are other problems. It’s not yet clear how effective the new, reduced Tory party will be in opposition, even if it hadn’t decided to spend four months talking to itself during a drawn-out leadership contest. Yet by declaring war on the left, Labour risks creating an internal opposition to fill the narrative void. It risks pushing sympathy towards the rebels, too, by suggesting the leadership cares more about party discipline than it does about actually doing good. And it locks the government into a position where it can’t introduce the pricey but worthwhile poverty reduction measure almost everyone in the Labour party supports without looking like it’s u-turned. Great stuff.
The worst thing about this gleeful, macho “virility test” stuff, though, is how it suggests some around the prime minister are under the impression The Thick of It was an instructional video. It’s one thing to focus on crushing other factions of the Labour party in opposition, when it might arguably win over some swing voters; continuing to do so while in government makes it look like you’re enjoying it. It’s hard to compellingly argue that the adults are back in the room while acting like you’ve just taken control of a student union entertainment committee.
Fixing the mess left by the Tories is going to require both party discipline and what has euphemistically been described as “tough choices”. Sometimes – more often than one hopes – that means disappointing those of us who want more money or a more interventionist state. Sometimes, though, it will mean taking on other opponents: those who don’t want to build homes or infrastructure or pay their fair share of tax; those who would oppose spending now, even though doing so limits growth or stores problems for the future. Such opponents may even be found, on occasion, among the staff of the Treasury.
Factional battles will sometimes be necessary, but a government that wants to change the country should focus on results rather than on who it can make cry. Virility tests are for teenage boys.
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