In the smallest of small ways, I suppose I am part of the media. With many millions of readers, in my dreams, and known all over the world (this does have a grain of truth in it, believe it or not), it is vaguely possible that my words may influence someone’s else’s opinion. In the case of the media’s blitzkrieg of an attack on the Labour Party in general and Prime Minister Keir Starmer in particular, there is precisely nothing I can write that would shift the dial. But I do believe there is a way back for the government and its supposedly beleaguered leader and it’s relatively simple: make people’s lives better.
It’s been barely 18 months since Labour won a rare election victory and while it cannot be denied that that time has been littered with fuck ups, some bigger than others (the appointment of Peter Mandelson as US ambassador being the big one), things are getting better. The economy is stable, interest rates have been lowered, inflation is lower than it was under the last disastrous Tory government, the NHS is recovering and, if it floats your boat (it doesn’t mine) then immigration is down dramatically. None of this appears in the right wing media, of course, or even the left of centre Guardian which to a journalist is flat out trying to unseat Starmer, and especially the BBC and Sky News, both of whom have shifted away from editorial independence to effectively cheerleading Nigel Farage and his far right company Reform UK Ltd. There is little the government can do about the grotesque influence of the media except one thing: deliver for the people.
Many of Labour’s achievements to date have been incremental and with something like the NHS, it’s a battleship that needs to be turned around. It’s turning but maybe if you’re not in the heart of the system, you can’t see it. Freezing prescription charges and train fares make small differences for many, removing the two child cap on benefits takes half a million people out of poverty. This is great stuff, but a government needs to address the fact that there is an enormous section of society that needs to see their own living standards improve.
The Blair/Brown governments from 1997 to 2010 did just that. Almost everything got better and until the worldwide financial crash occurred in 2008, Britain was a better, more stable country. The NHS, for example, had virtually no waiting lists, something David Cameron’s Tories, with the assistance of the Liberal Democrats (never forget, by the way, when they are slagging off Labour), reversed dramatically. Labour fixed the roof while the sun was shining. The Tories smashed it open again.
It will all come down to simple things. Putting money in people’s pockets, making houses more affordable, keeping Council Tax and other bills lower, by adding security to people’s lives, including at work, by making serious efforts to reduce and then eliminate the need for food banks. There is so much more to be done and the government must do it, not for a popularity contest, but to improve people’s lives.
Politicians need to be brave. If the super rich need to pay a bit more to help the very poorest in society, then explain why. The super rich, who control the media, will doubtless go bonkers, but the government must look beyond a few bad headlines and reach out to actual people.
The things I am suggesting may not work. Too often I hear people say things like: “Let’s give Reform a chance”. I get it. People have been let down by politicians for much of their lives. Nigel Farage should have a go. That’s all well and good until you remember who he is, a thoroughly modern Oswald Mosley, a far right privately educated former city trader and member of the establishment, a career politician who has made a very good living out of peddling fear and loathing. It is a matter of fact that a Reform government would take a torch to everything we value, like the NHS which would disappear at a stroke. Reform is a retirement home for the people who helped wreck our country in 14 long Tory years, the likes of Suella Braverman, Robert Jenrick and Nadhim Zahawi. It would be like giving the keys to your house to arsonists. But unless the government can make people’s lives better, the type of people our fathers and grandfathers fought against in World War Two would literally run our country, too.
Farage has charisma, whereas Starmer has little. But Boris Johnson had it in spades and just look what happened. If you thought Johnson was a breath of fresh air as PM, I would suggest you weren’t paying attention.
I am of course biased. I would vote Labour even if they had a complete moron in charge. In fact, I did just that in 2019 when Jeremy Corbyn led Labour to oblivion in the General Election. In Starmer, we have a thoroughly decent man who, unlike Farage is not a career politician. But it needn’t matter.
This government has a massive majority and it can do what it wants. And what it should do is start a massive programme of public works to improve the economy and start immediately to improve the living standards from the bottom up.
It is frightening to think that so many people appear to be prepared to vote for a private company owned by a far right shyster like Farage and put him into Downing Street. But unless Labour reaches out to the very people it was founded to look after, essentially the working man and woman, the old, the sick the vulnerable and the poor the Trumpite world of Reform UK Ltd lies waiting for us.
If Starmer and Labour allow Farage to win, it will have failed the country. Things can only get better, went the song that accompanied Labour into power back in 1997. Today, things need to get much better and soon. If they don’t, the darkness that will fall over our country will be like nothing we have seen in our lives.
