Fool’s errand

Marc Sidwell has a useful CAPX piece on what he calls Starmer’s quest for control. Useful because Sidwell refers to Starmer's quest as a fool's errand which it is and it is worth repeating.


Starmer’s quest for control is a fool’s errand

If you want to understand Keir Starmer’s approach to government – and why his new administration already seems to be struggling – there was an important clue in his conference speech this week.

In what must have struck his speechwriter as a dazzling rhetorical trick, the Prime Minister attempted to hijack the Brexit slogan ‘Take back control’. Starmer blasted the Conservatives for being committed to an ‘uncontrolled market’, and contrasted that to his vision for a more powerful state, saying: ‘if you want a country with more control… that is a Labour argument’. Shortly afterwards, of course, he confused sausages with hostages – an apt illustration that control is harder than it looks, even over your own vocal cords.

Rachel Reeves sounded a variation on the same theme in her conference speech as well, stating: ‘government cannot just get out of the way and leave markets to their own devices.’ Yet before the end of the week it emerged that her effort to squeeze billions out of Britain’s non-doms looks set to lose money and will have to be rethought. Letting government take charge turns out to be unexpectedly challenging after all.


The whole piece is well worth reading as a quiet reminder of how miserably ill-equipped the Starmer cabinet is. Another reminder that we have a government of careerist dolts who reached this position without having paid anywhere near enough attention to what works as opposed to what doesn't. A good word for them is 'fools', but there are many others equally apt, as we are finding out.

Starmer has been seduced by the glamour of control. It is, no doubt, thrilling for those who find themselves in charge: you can see it in the faces of Labour’s new front bench. Yet as accusations of cronyism and special favours for the chosen few fill the front pages, and as the levers of state start to rattle ineffectively in his hands, the Prime Minister should reflect on whether taking control away from everyone else is really such a promising political strategy. When things go wrong, there is, after all, no one else left to blame.