How long would it be before any competent government with a thumping parliamentary majority needed to relaunch their political strategy? Two, three, maybe even four years into their time in office?
That Sir Keir Starmer is attempting a ‘reset’ just five months after Labour won power proves how badly things have gone for him.
The Prime Minister insisted during the election campaign that he had a plan to fix the country. Yet there has been no trace of it.
Instead, the Government has made so many missteps its shoelaces might as well have been tied together.
It’s not hard to grasp why Sir Keir’s popularity ratings have plunged into the abyss.
He has broken promise after promise. His Chancellor’s brutal Budget will hit jobs and living standards. He has scrapped pensioners’ winter fuel payments, while bunging big pay rises to his union pals.
Now he is essentially trying to start again. In a major speech today, he will set out measurable ‘milestones’ for going green, reducing NHS waiting lists, cutting crime and giving children the best start in life.
But voters don’t care if Whitehall departments hit centrally mandated ‘benchmarks’. They care about whether they can see a GP when ill or if they’re financially worse off because the economy is stagnating.
The Prime Minister insisted during the election campaign that he had a plan to fix the country. Yet there has been no trace of it
There is no timetable for raising defence spending to 2.5 per cent, even though the head of the Armed Forces warned yesterday of the grave threat posed by rogue states
And what about the biggest problems? Net migration was nearly a million in 2023 and the small boats keep coming, but Sir Keir will not set a target for cutting the numbers.
Nor is there a timetable for raising defence spending to 2.5 per cent, even though the head of the Armed Forces warned yesterday of the grave threat posed by rogue states.
The PM’s speech might be full of missions and targets beloved of the technocrat, but there is a distinct sense he is clueless about how to solve Britain’s most pressing problems.
However many times he reboots his stuttering Government, his rhetoric is not the problem: his policies are. And that’s what voters will ultimately judge him on.
French lessons
The collapse of the French government in chaos and recrimination marks an ignominious low point for Emmanuel Macron.
With the ousting of his prime minister Michel Barnier after just three months, the preening president is now a busted flush.
Mr Barnier lost a vote of no confidence after hard-Right and far-Left parties united to oppose his Budget designed to slim down France’s bloated state.
But make no mistake, blame for this humiliation lies solely with President Macron. His hubristic gamble to call a snap election in the summer backfired spectacularly when he failed to win.
That has left France politically paralysed at the worst possible time, with the economy a basketcase and social tensions rising dangerously. No wonder the people are angry.
President Macron has been punished for arrogantly ignoring voters’ concerns. His predicament should be a valuable lesson for Britain’s political elite. If you treat the public with contempt, you give them no choice but to vote for someone who won’t.
Michel Barnier lost a vote of no confidence after hard-Right and far-Left parties united to oppose his Budget designed to slim down France’s bloated state
A blight on our farms
Labour MPs claim to be on the side of working people. But clearly not when it comes to some of the hardest working – our farmers.
By voting for the Government’s shameful inheritance tax raid on agricultural land, they are inevitably putting a nail in the coffin of countless family farms.
Yet while clobbering them with the loathed tractor tax, those same Labour MPs happily support sending foreign aid to farmers overseas. Their priorities couldn’t be clearer.
By voting for the Government’s shameful inheritance tax raid on agricultural land, they are inevitably putting a nail in the coffin of countless family farms
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