As winter arrives, what manner of government is this? Who are they really, this regiment of taciturn social democrats, Blairites unto the third generation and quietly defiant, prickly socialists? Good people, by and large, not in it for themselves, but their yoking together can seem more like a hubbub than a political project.
Until recently the easy answer would have been that they’re a government of growth. After Conservative stagnation, at last we would be building again, hiring again and generating the wealth to remake decent public services. We would be, as Keir Starmer and Xi Jinping would put it, “rebuilding the foundations”.
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