Cheer up, Keir! UK’s Starmer told to lighten up

LONDON — At the dawn of Labour’s first government for 14 years, armed with a huge majority, Keir Starmer sounds decidedly downbeat. And that’s just the way he wants it.

After a testing start to his premiership, with towns and cities across England beset by riots, the prime minister’s speech ahead of parliament’s return from its summer break Monday was not exactly wreathed in smiles. 

“I will be honest with you,” he said, speaking from the garden of No. 10 Downing Street. “There’s a budget coming in October, and it’s going to be painful.”

The new PM’s message mirrors the ominous noises coming from his Chancellor Rachel Reeves, who stressed in the House of Commons this week that she faces “tough decisions” on tax and spend as a result of the “black hole” left by the outgoing Conservative government. 

One emblematic cut has been announced already, as Reeves, the U.K.’s top finance minister, scrapped universal payments to pensioners to help with the cost of energy bills.

There is a clear logic behind the grim drumbeat, as ministers attempt to lay the groundwork for expected cuts in that forthcoming budget, and bolster their reputation for economic responsibility. 

Yet some — including both political opponents and Labour insiders — are starting to question whether all this doom and gloom is being laid on too thick. 

George Osborne, a former Tory chancellor who embarked on a large-scale program of spending cuts in the 2010s, told POLITICO that Labour was missing any promise of “sunlit uplands” which would tell voters what to look forward to.

“They’ve got to somehow set a more positive agenda so that people can say ‘I understand why they’re cutting the winter fuel payment, because they want to achieve these things,’” he said. 

Hard times

The words of warning coming from the top of the Labour Party about the hard times to come have been consistent throughout the year, as Starmer and Reeves led their party to victory by vowing to turn the page on an era of Tory mismanagement.

Economic credibility has in the past been an Achilles’ heel for Labour — but Liz Truss’s disastrous 49-day stint in office, which sent the markets into freefall, turned that on its head and saw Labour overtake the Conservatives.

Keen not to squander this new-found aura of economic competence, the party has enforced strict message discipline around Reeves’ maxim: “If we cannot afford it, we cannot do it.” 

The new PM’s message mirrors the ominous noises coming from his Chancellor Rachel Reeves. | Lucy North/Pool/AFP via Getty Images

The dire warnings have led to speculation that the new government has been preparing the ground for potential tax rises, reduced public spending and the nixing of key infrastructure projects in the budget due on October 30.

There is another rationale too, associated with Starmer’s mission to rebuild trust with the public. His sometimes dour brand of frankness is seen as part of that process, standing in contrast with the previous government’s approach of trumpeting modest nuggets of positive economic news.

When inflation fell in May, Reeves told then Chancellor Jeremy Hunt “now is not the time to be popping champagne corks” — convinced that talk of turning a corner did not chime with the public mood. 

Labour’s election chief, Pat McFadden — himself a former fiscal guard dog for the party as shadow chief secretary to the Treasury — and campaigns director Morgan McSweeney have also been key to the effort to avoid appearing overconfident about the health of the economy. 

One party aide who worked with McSweeney during the election described him as “Mr Misery Guts” with “this kind of relentless focus on taking nothing for-granted.”

Sunshine deficit

But while Starmer boasts a huge and outwardly united parliamentary party, all this misery is starting to get some down.

Osborne, who acknowledged Labour was attempting to copy the playbook he used when he took over the Treasury in 2010, contrasted the current government’s strategy with that employed by Gordon Brown as chancellor in Tony Blair’s Labour government from 1997.

Brown used the line “prudence for a purpose” in his first budget and, as Osborne puts it, “there was a very clear sense of the mission of the Blair-Brown government — and I don’t think they’ve [Starmer and Reeves] yet done that.”

“At this rate, every single headline for the next two months is going to be about the budget rather than about other things they’re doing,” he added. “There’s no optimism message. What’s it for?”

Similarly, Peter Mandelson, former righthand man to Blair, told the BBC’s Westminster Hour that the government needed to “show what the sacrifice is about” by offering some light at the end of the tunnel. 

While Keir Starmer boasts a huge and outwardly united parliamentary party, all this misery is starting to get some down. | Pool Photo by Stefan Rousseau via Getty Images

The sentiment was echoed by a former senior civil servant who recently left a high-spending department and was not authorized to speak publicly. “I happen to think cutting the winter fuel payment is a good idea, but at some point you need to communicate what it’s all in aid of,” they said.

Likewise, a newly elected Labour MP, also granted anonymity in order to speak frankly, said the government had not “rolled the pitch” for removing winter fuel payments, and that while it could be mitigated for the poorest pensioners, it had left them “anxious about what’s coming in the budget.”

Enough with the gloom

The same Labour aide quoted above said that while they understood the theory behind the pessimistic outlook, “you need some light and shade.”

A second Labour official, also speaking anonymously, complained the government was not publicizing its own policies enough, allowing the news cycle to be filled by dismal speculation about the budget. “Where’s all the good news?” they asked exasperatedly.

Starmer’s spokesperson defended his methods this week in suitably dry terms, telling journalists who asked about his gloomy stance: “It is only with economic growth that you are able to get the tax receipts that you need to fund public services and increase living standards across the country.”

Responding to Osborne’s comments, a senior government official said his criticism “should hardly come as a surprise to anyone” and Labour would take “the tough decisions now to clear up the mess he and his party left.”

So far, everything is going according to plan for the PM and his chancellor. Just don’t expect many laughs along the way. 

Dan Bloom contributed reporting.