Cast your mind back to the heady days of early July, as a beaming Sir Keir Starmer swept into Downing Street to a cheering crowd and the promise of “change”.
Britain’s seventh ever Labour prime minister had won a landslide that deservedly drew parallels between himself and the party’s most successful election winner Tony Blair.
Yet on Tuesday, just over 50 days on from that moment, Sir Keir was very clear that the ballot box victory was where the parallel ends.
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Forget New Labour’s “things can only get better” mantra. In his first major Downing Street speech, this prime minister was clear that in his Britain “things can only get worse – for now”.
Armed with a new slogan across the lectern – “fixing the foundations” – Sir Keir set out the parlous state of the public finances, the dangerous populism that had flourished under the Tories and corroded our communities, triggering the recent riots, and the erosion of trust between government and the governed.
He reiterated his commitment to put government “back into the service of working people” and to repair “broken Britain”. But, he said, it would take time, be “painful” and involve unpopular decisions.
In a nutshell, this was a prime minister preparing the ground for tax rises and spending cuts in the autumn – all those questions avoided during the general election, now answered up front from the vantage point of being in government with a massive majority.
The autumn budget was “going to be painful”, he told an audience of members of the public he had met during the election campaign.
“We have no other choice, given the situation we’re in,” he added. “Frankly, things will get worse before they get better.”
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PM: Budget will be ‘painful’
For all the talk of doing politics differently, Sir Keir was rolling out a well-worn political strategy – blame the previous government for the terrible state of the country in order to create some space to do unpopular things.
His calculation is that the public will blame the past government, not his, particularly if – as he highlighted in his speech – voters can see the new administration is getting on with its priorities around growing the economy, green energy, housebuilding, or cutting NHS waiting lists by striking public sector pay deals.
“Come the autumn, if we can show we are getting on with it, we hope it will buy us some time,” said one senior government figure. “What people will want is progress checks.”
But, as the controversy over the scrapping of the universal winter fuel allowance payments to pensioners shows, these difficult decisions will face a backlash.
The Starmer administration is already under fire from some on its own side to amend the policy and that noise is unlikely to dim as the increased energy price cap kicks in over the autumn and winter.
And what of tax rises? Sir Keir told me in our Sky News Leaders’ Debate he had “no plans” to raise taxes beyond what was outlined in the manifesto.
Now he says that what Labour characterise as a £22bn “black hole” in the public finances – caused in part by Labour’s decision to settle on public sector pay recommendations – leave him with few options.
But in reality, questions around tax rises and spending cuts, given the state of the public finances, were raised repeatedly in the election, and Labour avoided answering them.
Rishi Sunak is now already arguing that Labour are doing what he warned they would in the election – put up taxes.
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‘Hunt lied over state of public finances’
This will undoubtedly be the running battle of the autumn. On Tuesday, Sir Keir ruled out raising taxes on “working people”, in the shape of income tax, national insurance of VAT.
But he left no doubt in my mind tax rises were on the way as he signalled that “those with the broadest shoulders” should carry the burden, paving the way for more levies on the wealthy, and perhaps big business too.
Sir Keir might be successful politically in pinning the blame on the Tories. But he does not want to just have a political win. He wants to restore trust in politics.
For now, voters might be forgiven for thinking it is more of the same – the promise of change before the election only to then witness a blame game in which politicians trade blows and the public have to take the political pain after the win.
Things can only get worse is indeed, as Sharon Graham of Unite put it after Sir Keir’s speech, a “bleak picture” of Britain. But it is now the opening chapter of this Labour administration.
For a country running out of patience, Sir Keir will need to show some progress on his missions too. Labour won on a slogan of change, not more of the same.
