Labour 2024: There's no such thing as a free sausage
Hard policy decisions will command respect eventually if things go well, avoidable damage to reputation lasts. No taxpayers' money involved, but didn't anyone think 'Freebies? Hang on a minute'?
Thanks for all the kind words over the last couple of issues, the next thing I write about schools will be a little more cheerful, I expect.
I don’t go to Labour Party conference any more. Sometimes I miss it, but never for long. This year I had messages from friend who it would have been great to see. They all told me it was a feel good event, despite the unfortunate headlines of the past few weeks. The glow of winning and bumping into ministers instead of shadows is reward for hard work. It would have been nice to see the hundreds of people from around the South East who I know from their social media are there.
I’m glad they are having a good time. But for me Conference is hard work. It involves walking a lot on hard surfaces, eating badly at all the wrong times, drinking maybe a bit much, sleeping badly and wading through hoards of the 20,000 (really?) who turn up to crowd into overly hot rooms. Invariably, I come away with a cold or worse, which is a pain I can do without and it costs about the same as a week in the sun – the choice is a no brainer.
When I was on the Labour staff conference was about getting through the week undamaged. We would hope that the bust ups wouldn’t be too serious, that the good work of whoever on whatever wouldn’t be submerged in some hopeless row or block vote catastrophe. Even so, as a staffer back then, conference was in those days a nice little bonus. You got a daily allowance and it was up to you how you used it. I generally stayed with friends, saved my allowances, and bought myself a new suit. Which brings me nicely to the politics of Labour Liverpool 2024.
Speak Now
So there I am siting in front of the TV making notes on the leader’s speech and did I hear the right? Can’t have, but it sounded like it.
I WhatsApp a mate in Liverpool: “You in the hall? Did he just say that?”
Reply: “Dunno. Did he?”
I check social media.
Reply: “Seems he did.”
“A return of the sausages” really shouldn’t be funny. Gaza is too serious a business. But it is. It’s the best slip of the tongue since Jim Naughtie introduced Jeremy Hunt and the most ironic since Gordon Brown told the House of Commons he had “saved the world”.1 It stopped them talking about freebies for at least half a day. You must have seen it, if not it’s here. Enjoy:
The Lakes
Keir Starmer probably made his best speech as leader. He was batting on a benign track; the first speech by a new Prime Minister is as easy as it ever gets for a leader. He isn’t a natural orator but he has worked on it. He can’t tell a joke to save his life so shouldn’t try and he can’t deliver a funny story either, though he’s getting better at scripted in quips. His diversions into personal tales meant it sagged a bit two third through; a solid opening narrative unnecessarily disrupted. He had to lead the audience back up the hill, which is generally to be avoided, but they were so much on his side that he got away with it.
On the BBC punditry desk former Labour List Editor, now with House Magazine, Sienna Rogers was a right little bundle of spiteful arrogance, while Isobel Hardman, an ultra-Blairite who bats for the other team at the Spectator, bemoaned a lack of policy initiatives, seemingly unaware that there was an election with a manifesto and everything a mere 80 days back. Even given that, leaders speeches are not for fleshing out legislative detail. A few unrelated policy pledges and a direction of travel is all you can reasonably expect. This pair of grumps who never have and probably never will run for election to anything thought it was all “managerial”. They typified the media narrative – the government “doesn’t have a theme”, as if returning to good government and fixing the country isn’t one. They can’t seem to get that politics as entertainment is not really the point any more.
Cruel Summer
The first 80 days this government have seemed very long. I don’t think that’s just me.2 What this tells us is a lot has been going on.
At first the feeling of a return to normality and having grown ups back in charge was quite the novelty. Just being glad that awful shower had gone did nicely. Soon enough the government was presenting itself as busy. It was never going to feel like 1997, it didn’t, it doesn’t, it won’t.
But the legislative programme is very substantial, and there is a lot good stuff in there, but there is also difficult stuff and some of it will tee up some opportunist campaigning. There are, however, changes that need to be made that although the Conservatives will campaign against them they are changes that they will not seek to reverse. They may claim they will now, but in time they will not, as it was with the minimum wage, the devolution changes and much of New Labour’s social liberalisation. There are a couple of stupid bills too – the smoking stuff and the football regulator, but all governments do daft things.
The riots were triggered by calculated disinformation but there had been rumbling undercurrents in the dark corners of far right for some time. It was the first opportunity for the extra-parliamentary right to attempt to destabilise the Labour Government. Make no mistake that this was deliberate and fermented – even if most of those involve were criminal idiots, all the easier to manipulate. Any trigger would do. The rumblings are still there, but, as in 2011, the sentencing has had the intended deterrent affect. For now. Starmer handled it well.3
Reputation
The key message of the first 100 days defining the legacy of the last Conservative government and one of economic chaos. Labour has largely been winning that battle, having lost its own in 2010.
You can repeat often enough, every Labour Government other than New Labour in 1997, lost the confidence of the financial markets within the first year of its mandate. These facts may be uncomfortable, but they are still the facts from which only one reality can be understood; in its first year a government can lose the confidence of the markets and business and if that happens it will be unable to do much in years two to five because the markets have the power to destroy the government and we know they will, no matter how much we say it’s not fair. So there is no choice: that means proving the point, whether it is in a Commons vote set up by the Conservatives as a trap or whether it is in a left trades union inspired block vote at your own conference.4
I have no doubt, and I have written about it at length, that the detail of the Winter Fuel Allowance changes could have been handled better. That was policy detail not message. Neither do I doubt that there are benefit changes that are needed to address real concerns of poverty among working age people and children that could use money more than well off pensioners. But once the lines are drawn the consequences of the Government retreating would be more damaging in the long run than any short term popularity gain. If5 Labour is able to deliver stability and rising living standards then the difficult decisions of the early days will be respected when the choice once again arrises over who runs the country. That’s how it works.
Mastermind
People look back on the way New Labour handled its communications and enjoyed an unprecedented honeymoon period, attributing that success to a comms mastermind, but the glow of three election victories in a row tends to gloss over some of the reality.
New Labour also had rows that better policy detail could have avoided and presentational screw ups because of damaging internal conflict. Then, as now, nobody knew for sure that the internal conflict was a real thing, but there was a fair bit of smoke for there to be no combustion. We now know that the TB/GB conflict was an actual thing and not just Charlie Wheelan and/or Alistair Campbell acting beyond their brief. We remember, when prompted, that within weeks of the election there were stories of Labour people seeking to cash in on their relationships. The image of an all powerful spin machine is selective memory from a good time, when actually we were all in the process of discovering just how different government is to opposition.
Guilty as Sin?
Fairly or unfairly, I think the freebies business is far more damaging than anything to do with actual governing. It’s a mistake to believe people are not bothered, and the massage the right wing media are seeking to generate plays into the hands of populism.
The most stupid thing Tony Blair ever said was “my government will be whiter than white”. When I heard it I held my head in my hands shouting ‘He said ******* what?” then may have banged it off the table.6 While Keir Starmer didn’t go quite that far he certainly laid out a narrative of an administration holding itself to higher standards. Unfortunately, people DO hold Labour to higher standards. Just as they did in 2009.
Personally, I think that politics and the hypocritical media, most of whom would crawl over their dead granny to snaffle any freebie on offer, has become altogether too pious and hair shirty for my liking. I realise it is easy for me to say that. The only gifts I got were those customary when the rotating Council presidency changed. The Romanians sent a paid of knitted baby mitts in the colours of the national flag, the Bulgarians sent some green, red and white string. Croatia, sent the best one – a not unpleasant tie that I have actually worn – did you know ties were a Croatian thing? Neither did I. I won’t surprise you that none of this stuff crossed the declarable threshold.
What I think isn’t important, but I like the way Angela Rayner fought back. People borrow each other’s houses on holiday. Some of them are cabinet ministers, get over it. And, you know, you can really offend people by saying no sometimes. People will get that, but some things they won’t understand because none of the justifications chime with their experience of everyday life. Didn’t anybody think, ‘hang on a minute?’
I can make those justifications - candidates for high office need to present themselves well, clothes are expensive, glasses are expensive, and have you seen the cost of a hair shirt these days, it’s usually more expensive for a woman in politics, it’s hard to get men to part with money for a few suits. And some of us even know the only shadows with a salary in addition to the MP salary are the Leader of the Opposition, the Chief Whip and Deputy Chief Whip. We know a potential Prime Minister can’t just go to football like anyone else and so on. But people out there don’t see it that way, even when it’s all properly declared. Nobody gives them money for clothes, nobody buys their glasses, nobody gives them free tickets, even though they have a granddaughter who can name Taylor’s cats, list all her boyfriends, knows all the words to every track on Red, 1989, Midnights, TTPD and the rest but can’t possibly afford to go. The optics are bad, as well know all too well, it’s delicate but would I have taken an Eras ticket? Er, yes.7
You need to calm down
On the presentational side of this freebie business, I’ve seen a lot of people questioning the PR skills of Number 10. While I think they are finding their way and they don’t have the stature of some recent occupants of that office,XX I don’t think they can be blamed here. These stories are based on declarations of interest. As Tom Baldwin pointed out on Chanel 4 News, you don’t have to be Woodward and Bernstein to do that. The information provides a series of stories the right wing press and the pious Guardian can twist and and there is not a great deal that can be done about it Neither was there, nor can there be, any individual with overarching responsibility for what 30? Shadow folk and 400+ MPs accept. What you can do is fight back, earlier and harder. It’s not the same as Conservative corruption and contacts worth millions for mates. Not a bit. No taxpayers’ money involved. Slow off the mark, maybe. But let that teach them not to be so bloody pious.
Ready for it?
Whether or not they could have tracked gifts better, there is definitely a problem in 10 Downing Street, but we haven’t a clue what it is. Jealousies and turf wars, maybe. Resentments over salaries, highly probable. Misogynist resentment of powerful women, surely not! Differences in political viewpoints, less likely. Personal dislikes, depressingly probable. But still we don’t really know the cause of disfunction, nor do we know how serious it might be.
We can make some educated guesses. When Tony Blair came into Downing Street Civil Service noses were put out of joint and his team took a while to find their feet. When Gordon Brown finally got to replace Blair his team was hopelessly understaffed, ill fitted to positions and lacking clout (despite having had ten years as plotters and close neighbours). Theresa May and Boris Johnson both had staffs with highly dysfunctional relationships and uncomfortable hierarchies.8 Are you detecting a pattern here?
Former Prime Ministers and senior No 10 staffers with any level of self-awareness admit that the role is a shock to the system. Nobody is ever ready for it, nothing prepares you and the transition is brutal. In that context dysfunction is no surprise. It is highly probably that the structure, composition and number of the team in Number 10 is somehow wrong. It doesn’t have to be anyone’s fault either.
It is also true that the Conservative loathing for the PM’s Chief of Staff, Sue Grey, is visceral, they will stop at nothing to undermine her. This allegedly carries into some senior civil servant offices. Starmer has also stated intent to rebuild trust with the Civil Service, which complicates things further, not least because Dominic Cummings, loathsome though he is, was right about a few things.9
It’s complicated, but it could be worse. It could be the TBGBs. A division between the PM and the Chancellor has been a new normal but is miles worse – only Cameron and Osborne managed to have a productive political relationship in the age of 24 hour news and social media. Other divisions in the Cabinet could also have been damaging. Office politics in Number 10 matter less, but they are destabilising and they are a potentially malignant presence. The PM must fix it - if he can find the time.
Getaway Car
In the end I expect more people will remember “a return of the sausages” than any other soundbite from the last week – and that’s pretty harmless. Off he went in the armoured limo to the UN General Assembly to be a statesman. And, you know what, it’s still good to have somebody who isn’t a national embarrassment and looks like he’s slept in his suit.
Rachel Reeves had a good conference. She looked the part and delivered a better speech, consciously reining in her tendency to hurry her lines, even if at times I could hear an echo of Gordon Brown, it was a GB lite echo and more about a rhetorical technique than content. She avoided the endless shopping lists to which chancellors can be prone. I thought Angela Rayner did some good interviews and fought back well on some of the freebies stuff. But beyond those two platform speeches from ministers received little broadcast coverage.
The first 80 days of the Good Ship Labour Government have seen gale force winds and the forecast doesn’t suggest any better ahead. The climate has changed. But, all considered, they could be a lot further off course than they are.
That’s all for this week, thanks for reading.
Till next time, take care.
John.
GB meant to say “saved the world’s banks”. GB’s slip was Freudian, Starmer’s was just bazaar.
I tried a few people out with the question, “do you think the has been in power longer than 100 days yet?” And they all said yes. Not especially scientific but it will do me.
I wrote about that in two pieces, here August 1 and here August 8.
Some not very bright leftist was praising the Chair for “sticking to her guns” and calling the result as carried on a show of hands rather than take calls for a card vote. Dearie me, get with the process comrade. Study the difference between the implications of a show of hands and a card vote.
And that’s a very substantial ‘if’.
There may have been witnesses. I knew it would bite us in the bum. Within days of the 97 election I was having to get a councillor suspended.
Who was giving these away anyway? I want words.
The definitive sources on this stuff are Andrew Rawnsley in the case of New Labour and Tim Shipman in the case of May. Nobody credibly disputes those accounts. The Johnson/Cummings show was played out on national television for all to see - who needs sources?
The first Blair office was impatient with the Civil Service in ways not dissimilar to DC, see Rawnsley again and the Campbell diaries.