Keir Starmer is a dreadful Prime Minister. We always knew he was going to be, but the truly astonishing thing is how quickly he allowed everyone who was previously on the fence to realise it too. Last night’s pathetic concession to his hoard of ill-disciplined, unserious backbenchers on welfare reform marked the third, and most damning, U-turn of his first year in power.
First we saw the spectacle of Labour MPs marched up to the top of hill on cutting Winter Fuel payments for some of the poorest in our society, then marched back down again. Then we saw those increasingly paranoid troops marched up the even rockier hill of a child rape gang inquiry, only to reach the summit and once again begrudgingly trudge back down the slope.
But make no mistake, last night’s capitulation on welfare cuts was the biggest humiliation of all. While cutting welfare may seem the most mundane of the three crimes – compared to freezing pensioners and allowing paedophile rapists to get off the hook – the planned reforms said much more about the sort of Government Keir Starmer had hoped to lead.
One that wasn’t just willing to make unpopular decisions for the short term, but one willing to – in his words – “fix the foundations” and put Britain on a more stable footing for years and decades to come.
The original proposals were only going to cut £5 billion from a welfare bill set to swell by £30 billion come the end of the decade. This was already a sign Keir Starmer had given up on any meaningful reform of the British state that might just prevent the roof caving in.
However these savings have now been reduced to around half of that, not only a completely meaningless saving in the long run, but leaving Rachel Reeves with yet another avoidable black hole, almost certainly set to be filled with more tax rises.
Once again Britain has bailed out the takers, while the makers – struggling to keep their heads above water – will be squeezed even more.
There’s no bravery here, no vision, no meaningful change to Britain’s predicaments. Most importantly for Starmer there is no legacy.
He needed one thing above all else: economic growth. Rachel Reeves has already smothered that out of the economy, but the £4.25 billion of u-turns in recent weeks means extra taxes will kill off her chances for good. This means no growth, no money, no investment, no turning Britain around.
I was on Jeremy Vine’s show yesterday morning with a Labour MP, who argued this rebellion had come about because her party is a “broad church”. I pointed out that the problem is we don’t know – and never have known – whether the vicar actually believes in God.
We saw so many Keir Starmers between his election as Labour leader and the election a year ago: there was apologetic Starmer; anti-Corbyn Starmer; pro-Israel Starmer; Brexity Starmer; Remainery Starmer; high tax and high spend Starmer; fiscally responsible Starmer. Each one of them as dishonest and vapid as the last, like a version of Mr Benn who wakes up and choses a different ideology every day.
Of course this is the fault of massive Tory failure over the previous years, which drove voters to hand Starmer his enormous majority, but that doesn’t excuse Labour or even Keir Starmer for allow this farce to drag on for as long as it has.
This government will now drift lazily and braindead towards the next election.
To quote Monty Python, this government is no more, it has ceased to be, it has expired and gone to meet its maker. This is an ex-government. In office but not in power, and one which will have nothing to show for itself come the next election.