Comeback Of The Year: Keir Starmer
Starmer has spent the last two-and-a-half years quietly playing a long game. While never to everyone’s satisfaction – that would be unfeasible – he nevertheless has addressed most of the issues he had on the table back in the spring of 2020, even largely cleaning up the smell of antisemitism which the Corbyn years had left hanging over the party. Corbynites have left in droves; Momentum marginalised; and, perhaps most importantly, the backroom political pressure exerted by Unite has been dramatically reduced.
This is not so much to do with Starmer directly: a major factor has been the transfer of power between former leader Len McCluskey and his successor Sharon Graham; and also the financial and political impact of multiple investigations (including criminal ones) getting close to McCluskey and his cronies, effectively pulling the plug on the old money-machine which funded Labour’s entryist cabal for so long. But these things might also not have happened, had Starmer not secured a convincing win over the Corbynites.
Starmer has not been perfect, by any means. He has failed to be ruthless with his frontbench, with the result that it is still rather weak in political heft. And his vacillation on women’s rights has created a potential Achilles heel for Labour, which the Tories have already shown themselves keen to exploit. He is still failing to beat Sunak in “best PM” polling.
But Labour’s current strong showing overall under his leadership is an undeniable achievement, when you consider the nadir it faced just three Christmases ago, after the party’s worst defeat in three-quarters of a century.
He now needs to ensure he doesn’t throw it away, which is still eminently possible.
The Order Of Black Wednesday Award: Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng
The Order Of Black Wednesday Award is a special prize, awarded by Uncut for wanton, gratuitous attempted or actual destruction of the UK’s finances (for political historians, the award is named after the fateful Wednesday in 1992, when Tory Chancellor Norman Lamont and the then non-independent Bank of England conspired to make UK interest rates jump massively several times in the same day; in the end proposing to hike to 15%, before collapsing out of the ERM, the EU’s currency-pegging system prior to the euro. He resigned in disgrace shortly after and his party lost its reputation for economic competence; not to mention power, in a Labour landslide five years later.)
Close to being awarded during the Johnson administration for the final Withdrawal Agreement, it was felt however by the judges that, although the damage was significant and the policy management cack-handed, it was not of the order required.
Truss and Kwarteng, let us not forget, launched on the UK a budget which jauntily claimed that we could both have a spending spree and major tax cuts, all at the same time.
It was a dazzling display in the defiance of financial gravity which lasted a few hours, during which the financial markets quickly realised that the resulting chasm between the government’s income and expenses could only be filled by a massive borrowing programme, sending both sterling and UK government debt through the floor.
It remains a sober lesson to us all, of what happens when you allow the political equivalent of letting children play with matches.
Tags: Black Wednesday, Jeremy Corbyn, Keir Starmer, Kwasi Kwarteng, Len McCluskey, Liz Truss, minibudget, Momentum
