As rousing messages go, “Things will get worse before they will get better” is a risky choice.
Speaking to the nation from the Downing Street rose garden this morning, Keir Starmer was trying to channel a sense of optimism beyond the gloom, but only after significantly more gloom has been trudged through. His focus was on exactly how much gloom there was and who was to blame for it being even more gloomy than previously thought – namely, the Tories for their 14 years of inept government. It’s a point he hammered home very effectively, but at the expense of expanding the cause for optimism, which very much fell by the wayside.
It was a slick operation from a stage-management perspective. The setting was inspired – chosen, as the Prime Minister made clear, to draw a visual distinction between his government and the last. It wasn’t subtle: Starmer was sure to evoke to the memory of lockdown-breaking parties, trips to Durham and general debauchery associated with Boris Johnson, insisting that in contrast under his premiership “this garden and this building are now back in your service”. Equally unsubtle was the decision to include in the audience not just lobby hacks and political advisers, but 50 people Starmer had met during the election campaign – teachers, nurses, firefighters, and other ordinary voters – as a physical reminder of who the PM has said he is committed to working for.
So ten out of ten for framing. But on actual substance, the Prime Minister was on less stable ground – and not just because of the damp grass.
This was a state-of-the-nation address, designed to draw together all the threads and themes of the past two months into a coherent vision for people who haven’t been paying attention to politics this summer: the intensity and pressure-relieving jolt of the election result and a change of government for the first time in a decade and a half; the fortnight of populist-driven civil disorder up and down the country that dominated August; the unpopular moves the government has already made such as releasing offenders early to free up prison places and turning the winter fuel allowance from a universal to a means-tested benefit for pensioners; and all of this, bookended by the doom-ridden economic outlook after Rachel Reeves had a chance to look “under the hood” of the nation’s finances; apprehension about her first Budget at the end of October.
Starmer needed a narrative to kickstart his leadership of the country after such a disjointed and unsettling summer. What he came up with was essentially “look at the mess the Conservatives left us in”. Everything difficult at the moment, he argued, is the fault of the last government: from the “£22bn black hole in the public finances” to the “societal black hole” in which the toxic populism, and sense of lawlessness which enabled the riots, was allowed to fester.
There may be well be more than kernel of truth to all this. The Office for Budget Responsibility is investigating the financial decisions of the last government that even die-hard Tories agree were desperately irresponsible. The dire crisis of prison places was flagged to Rishi Sunak’s justice secretary a year ago, and warned of years beforehand. And the economic and social alienation that inspired hundreds of thugs to descend on Britain’s public spaces to throw bricks and police and set fire to cars clearly did not begin when Starmer entered No 10 on 5 July. It is not hyperbole to say Labour has inherited an omnicrisis.
But that omnicrisis is no longer the Conservatives’ problem. Leaderless and demobilised, the Tories are currently an irrelevance. Voters endured a six-week election campaign of hearing all the ways the last lot had messed things up – now they want to know how the new lot intend to fix things. Instead, Starmer took the approach of a headteacher lecturing kids who took muck-up day too far.
You could see what the Prime Minister was trying to do today: lay the groundwork for further controversial moves – tax rises, spending cuts, further prisoner releases – by reiterating (“my dad was a toolmaker” style) just how big the mess that needs clearing up is. And using the riots that kicked off after the Southport attack as the centrepiece – with the argument that “they exposed the state of our country” and “revealed a deeply unhealthy society” – was a compelling starting point for a conversation about a broken nation and the risks of populism by which Starmer and his team are deeply troubled.
But a starting point isn’t enough. There is a fine line between toxifying the Tories and making yourself look powerless. And Starmer’s “Things will get worse before they will get better” narrative today did little to inspire confidence that he has the power to turn things around.
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