A film set location, a big budget production, an audience bussed in – the prime minister’s Plan for Change speech had all the hallmarks of big campaign moments past when Sir Keir Starmer used the event to launch his “first steps’ set of promises – from cutting NHS waiting lists and setting up a new border command to tackle small boats – and his election-winning manifesto.
Five months into government, on Thursday, he gathered his cabinet and crowd in Pinewood Studios to launch this six milestones for government.
But if it was meant to be a box office moment, it all felt a bit flat.
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Over the past 18 months, we’ve had three foundations, five missions, six first steps and now, on Thursday, six milestones, with a 42-page plan.
Speak to the prime minister at the edges of these events, and he can make a compelling case for his missions and the clarity he has for government.
But somehow it is getting lost in translation as the missions become the first steps, become milestones with three foundations to boot.
It can be hard to find a narrative in what this government is trying to do.
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Keir Starmer during his speech in Buckinghamshire.
Pic PA
Thursday was an attempt to change that with six measurable milestones now set up so you, Whitehall and the cabinet, are all crystal clear about where they are heading.
Some of them are a departure from manifesto pledges, others are not.
Some of them are genuinely ambitious, others less so.
The manifesto promise to have the fastest growing economy in the G7 is now an “aim” while the new milestone is to “raise living standards in every part of the United Kingdom, so working people have more money in their pockets” is a new target.
The idea is to make the pledge more “human” but the PM wouldn’t say how much he wanted to raise living standards – and household disposable income is already set to rise by the end of this parliament.
Then on opportunity for all, in the run-up to the election the government promised to recruit 6,500 more teachers to improve teaching in state secondaries.
Now the milestone they are asking to be measured on is a promise that 75% of five-year-olds are ready to learn in England when they start school against 67% today.
A programme lies on a chair during Starmer’s big speech.
Pic: Reuters
There is a new milestone to fast-track planning decisions on at least 150 major economic infrastructure projects.
There is a milestone to put a named bobby back on the beat in every neighbourhood, while the pledge to halve violence against women and girls has not been marked up as a milestone.
‘Hold the government’s feet to the fire’
Why are they doing it now and to what end?
At its heart this is an attempt to give voters clear targets on which they can, to quote Starmer himself, “hold the government’s feet to the fire”.
But it felt a bit like a rag bag of measures in which some past promises were pushed aside and others pumped up.
The 1.5 million housing target, the pledge to return to the NHS standard of 92% of patients being seen for elective treatment in 18 weeks, the commitment to green power by 2030 are all ambitious.
But things that are perhaps too risky or hard to meet have been dropped.
The migration question
One of the biggest omissions in the milestones was migration.
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Where’s immigration in PM’s milestones?
This surprised me, not least because the prime minister had said clearly that the economy and borders were his two main priorities in government and a clear concern for voters.
But instead of making it one of his milestone measures, for which the public can hold him accountable, the PM said securing borders was one of the “foundations” of his government.
There is no metric on which to measure him beyond net migration coming down from record levels of 800,000 plus in the past couple of years.
Perhaps he could have been more ambitious in setting a target to hit in terms of cutting legal migration or small boat crossings.
Perhaps he could have committed to a deportation figure – something that Harriet Harman suggested he might have done on our episode of Electoral Dysfunction this week.
But I suspect, in the end, Number 10 decided it was too risky to try to set targets.
Keir Starmer leaves after delivering a speech in Buckinghamshire setting out his government’s Plan for Change. Pic: PA
‘The tepid bath of managed decline’
But with a disaffected electorate, high levels of scepticism, and a Reform party playing into that anti-politics sentiment, Starmer knows he must galvanise his government to try to deliver tangibles before the next election, and this speech will perhaps be looked back on as one aimed as much at Whitehall as it was you, the voter.
He explicitly challenged the British state to deliver in this speech saying his Plan for Change was “the most ambitious plan for government in a generation” and would require a “change to the nature of governing itself” as he called on the state to become more dynamic, decisive, innovate, embracing of technology and artificial intelligence.
“Make no mistake, this plan will land on desks across Whitehall with the heavy thud of a gauntlet being thrown down, a demand given the urgency of our times,” he told his audience as he fired a warning shot to Whitehall.
“I do think there are too many people in Whitehall who are comfortable in the tepid bath of managed decline. Had forgotten, to paraphrase JFK, that you choose change not because it’s easy, but because it’s hard.”
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Starmer and his team know that without galvanising Whitehall and setting clear navigation through this mission and now measurable milestones, delivery will be hard.
The plan is for stock takes on the missions and milestones in order to hold mandarins accountable.
On the back of Starmer’s milestones speech will come another from cabinet minister Pat McFadden on civil service reform.
At the election, Starmer ran on a platform of promising change.
Five months later, eyeing a sharp fall in opinion poll ratings, he is offering a concrete plan for change.
For now voters seemed tuned out, with the pledges and targets being thrown at them failing to stick.
I don’t think Starmer or his team expect those polls to turn around any time soon.
But they are adamant that if they can fulfil promises to build more homes and better infrastructure, cut NHS waiting lists, lift living standards, and give people a sense of greater security on their streets, they can turn the tide on the tsunami of cynicism they face.
Starmer might not be the best storyteller, but in the end he’ll likely be judged not on the flourish or rhetoric, but on whether he can actually deliver.
