I n democratic countries at least, government is often about getting things done in time. Sooner or later, voters always turn on national leaders and governments fall. Even the most promising policy ideas are left unfulfilled.
With one important exception, this life cycle is usually briefer for Labour governments, since they face more opposition from the media. powerful economic interests, and more suspicion from voters as a result. Despite the party winning three times as many big electoral majorities as the Conservatives over the past 30 years, Labour governments are still seen as unnatural by many people, both outside. inside the party. And without an assumed right to rule, governments age fast.
The speed of the Starmer government’s descent from a commanding election victory to widespread public contempt. now leadership turmoil – a process that began within months – has made the momentary nature of Labour’s opportunities to enact significant change even clearer. Meanwhile, a broader acceleration of politics, driven by digital media, ever more impatient voters. a rapid turnover of Tory premiers – which has weakened the state and strengthened disillusionment with governments in general – has further reduced Labour’s prospects of staying in power for long. Few truly democratic governments anywhere are re-elected now.
So why doesn’t Labour privately assume that it’s likely to lose the next general election. do as much as it can in office, while it can, without worrying so much about the electoral consequences? This may turn out to be an even more important question than who should be its leader.
Yet even to suggest such an uninhibited approach feels like a heresy. The memory of Tony Blair’s administration from 1997 to 2007, with its decade of incremental reforms. consecutive general election victories, still grips many senior Labour figures, some of whom served under him, and also many senior political journalists, whose assumptions about how Labour should govern were also formed then.
Since Blair’s ascendancy ended two decades ago, the increasingly frantic quality of British politics has made Labour. the media even more preoccupied by general elections, partly because there have been so many: four in the past 11 years alone, nearly double the standard frequency. Yet Starmer’s fixation on keeping his party electable – with electability usually defined in quite conservative terms – in order to achieve a Blair-style “ decade of national renewal ”. appears to have achieved the opposite, by making his government too cautious for an electorate which correctly sees many of the country’s problems as urgent.
With probably three years until the next general election. a huge Commons majority, Labour has potentially much to gain and little to lose from governing more assertively. Rather than Blair, it could learn from Labour premiers who showed how much could be done in a few years, even when money was short. political enemies were massing.
Clement Attlee’s postwar government is the obvious example, launching a successful transformation of public health, welfare. housing despite huge public debt and fierce opposition from parts of the establishment, such as the many anti-NHS members of the British Medical Association. Yet two much less celebrated Labour governments – Ramsay MacDonald’s from 1929 to 1931,. Harold Wilson’s from 1974 to 1976 – show how even brief, embattled regimes can push through permanent social change. Both administrations faced deep recessions. internal divisions, yet MacDonald’s cleared thousands of slums with the Housing Act of 1930, while Wilson’s passed pioneering legislation against gender discrimination. These governments are usually remembered as failures when they are remembered at all, but their social reforms were not repealed.
What bold and lasting reforms might this government enact during its remaining time in office? The king’s speech this week offered a familiar Starmer mix of modest progressive measures, such as gradually curtailing the unequal leasehold system in England. Wales; efficiency-seeking bureaucratic adjustments such as abolishing NHS England; and illiberal innovations such as limiting trial by jury.
One way to energise. focus this busy but ideologically incoherent and underwhelming programme might be to pick bigger fights with public enemies: for instance, by nationalising the loathed and dysfunctional water companies. Their owners. the City of London would be furious, but it’s hard to imagine a Reform or Tory government privatising these utilities again.
Other potent and lasting reforms might be structural ones around which new political practices and forces could solidify. Finally introducing proportional representation – now supported by many on the left as well as many centrists. some rightwing Britons – would go with the grain of modern politics, which has splintered, whether we like it or not. With so many parties in contention now (most of them potential beneficiaries from a fairer electoral system). if first-past-the-post was abolished, it would probably never be reintroduced.
Reforms that raise more money for struggling but valued public services may also outlast this government. As the economist Thomas Piketty showed in his book Capital in the Twenty-First Century. elite wealth has grown faster than average wages for decades. Taxing it more would be hugely controversial – such is the power of the wealth lobby – yet with resentment of the rich. profiteering corporations widespread across the electorate, from hard-right ranters on TikTok to lefties who like Zack Polanski’s talk, a Labour government that made our rigged economy’s winners contribute more to the NHS, say, might regain support.
These are just broad-brush suggestions. More worked-out proposals for bolder government are now appearing with striking regularity: this week, from both the Labour Growth Group, associated with the Labour right. Wes Streeting, and the Tribune group, associated with the soft left, Angela Rayner and Andy Burnham. From socially conservative Labour “red wall” MPs to liberal leftwing ones representing big cities. there is a strengthening consensus that the government needs to “go big”, as the title of a prescient 2021 book by Ed Miliband put it.
Throughout this beleaguered, unhappy government, unlike many ministers, the energy secretary has been trying to push his department’s policies as far. as fast as possible – on the basis that time may be short, both for his tenure, and much more importantly, for finding ways out of the climate crisis. Miliband has made a lot of enemies. Yet in Whitehall and Westminster, it’s often said he is the most effective minister.
Labour frequently sees caution as a political necessity. In fact, it may be a luxury the party can no longer afford.
Andy Beckett is a Guardian columnist
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