Starmer’s reset is a sign of desperation
- Labour's ministers already come across as hunted and downtrodden
- This week brings the ultimate signal of government malaise: a relaunch
- Without a coherent set of beliefs, any Government is likely to flounder
This is a young Government. Labour have only been in power for five months. Yet already it has a tired, worn out feel about it. There is a sense of drift and pessimism. Every couple of days, a new sleaze scandal appears in the media.
This should be the phase when ministers are swanking and swaggering on the airwaves, basking in the limelight, confidently proclaiming the progress they are making for the brave new world. Yet do they come across as enjoying themselves? They do not. They come across as hunted and downtrodden. If they admit the Government is doing badly, that would be a gaffe, a story, a pit: ‘Minister breaks ranks…’ Yet if they insist the Government is doing well, that is so absurd a claim as to invite ridicule. So they try to say as little as possible. The Prime Minister engages in the displacement activity of constant foreign travel.
Quite short and familiar but the whole piece is well worth reading because this government is so remarkably inept and bereft of ideas. Phibbs is right, the latest reset is a sign of desperation - after only five months. To my mind it suggests a lack of talent far more damaging than outsiders might have supposed before the election. Useless we might have expected, but not this useless.
There is no need to bother with rumours in order to see that there is something very seriously amiss with the man at the top - Sir Keir Starmer.
Consider the contrast after Margaret Thatcher had been Prime Minister for five months. That took us to October 1979. That month, exchange controls were abolished – a radical change that transformed us into an open economy that faced the world with confidence. The end of July 1979 had seen controls on the dividends companies could pay abolished. Price controls were lifted and the Price Commission abolished. Wage controls were also scrapped. The Budget on 12 June 1979 cut the top rate of income tax from 83% to 60%. The Queen’s Speech on 15 May announced legislation that would give council tenants the right to buy their homes.
6 comments:
I have already posted this on Churchmouse Capanologist but I repeat it as I think it cuts to the heart of the matter:
"I read on someone else’s blog (can’t find it, sorry) the current Labour cabinet described as the Dunning-Kruger Cabinet.
From Wikipedia:
The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which people with limited competence in a particular domain overestimate their abilities.
It would explain so much. The Cabinet believe they are political giants bestriding the world and cannot understand why people consider them to be useless."
And so: "Yet if they insist the Government is doing well, that is so absurd a claim as to invite ridicule. So they try to say as little as possible. The Prime Minister engages in the displacement activity of constant foreign travel."
The Dunning-Kruger effect meets the real world.
There is a noticeable tendency for journalists and commentators to keep a tally of the current government's problems, disasters, and causes of unpopularity. That's very welcome, and I don't remember it being quite so marked during previous administrations.
They now seem to be in a far worse position than any that I can remember. Too many "relaunches", and it's clear that they are utterly clueless and can't keep promises with the electorate. But if they plough on regardless, then we get real-life disasters caused by their policies. The big one is going to be Miliband. Him backing down from his gurning hyper-caffeinated performances is going to be almost impossible - he'll have to be replaced. What would be more telling, though, is allowing him to continue, and the country facing power outages. It will be far better if we have power cuts. If the country slowly bleeds to death because businesses are finished off by high energy costs, Starmer can blame it on a range of other factors (poor management, world recession, and of course Brexit) and the public won't notice it until it's too late.
"Without coherent set of beliefs"
How about totalitarism and socialism?
DJ - there seems to be something else in there too, as if Government faith in what it is doing has a mystical element. As if what is being pursued is an ideal world where there are no trade-offs because trade-offs can be resolved by the ideal way forward - the Way.
Sam - yes, Miliband is the big threat and a few blackouts might help, although unfortunately they would have to be sufficiently prolonged to grab the headlines. At least a rational debate could be kicked off.
Anon - yes they seem to be at the back of everything. It's possible that Starmer and co. see it through an incoherent lens though, an impossible ideal which if more explicit would be incoherent.
A government spokesperson said "These power cuts protect OAPs from the withdrawal of their Winter Fuel Allowance because there is no "fuel" for them to buy anyway."
dearieme - "It encourages OAPs to be very down to earth in their lifestyle habits."
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