There is a way out of the doom loop for Labour

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The writer is an editor at the FT

It’s harder than it sounds. The saying goes that politicians campaign in poetry but must govern in prose. For Sir Keir Starmer, the past five months have been more like a trip from the parade ground to the trenches.

The latest shots come from women who are protesting the timing of the state pension rise. In opposition, Starmer has sided with women in their 60s and 70s, claiming they were treated unfairly. Independent experts agreed with them. It may be so, but now the Prime Minister says that the government cannot afford compensation.

These wasps (women against state pension inequality) are not alone. It scrapping An annual winter fuel allowance for all but the poorest pensioners has sparked a backbench revolt. Business leaders, stubbornly courted when Labor was in opposition, are now bitterly complaining that a sharp rise in national insurance premiums will hurt investment and recruitment. Farmers have taken to the streets against the imposition of inheritance tax on the lands of importance. Starmer’s poll ratings have plummeted.

The economy does not help. Labor bet on the recovery of growth. Rachel Reeves’s budget restored confidence in public finances. It also provided much-needed funds to save the NHS and start repairing broken public services. Growth has stalled and inflation is stubborn.

A look at the Tories’ dismal economic legacy shows that the Treasury has been more right than wrong.Handouts to wealthy pensioners and tax breaks for investors buying farmland make no sense at the best of times.And who can blame ministers for that mantra? , that it was the Tories who destroyed the economy.The mistake is to imagine that Labor will thank you for taking the pains to put things right.

Ministers cannot expect the benefit of the doubt from the media. The psychodrama of five post-Brexit prime ministers and the rise of social media has turned politics into a game of ‘gotcha’ , which prove the collapse of the Prime Minister’s power.

Those with a longer perspective will remember that even successful Prime Ministers have bad times. When Margaret Thatcher made the defiant promise that “the lady is not going around” in the autumn of 1980, a fair share of her party revolted against her shock-therapy economic policies. against: Tony Blair’s premiership was marred early on by a far more serious revolt against Starmer’s in his first term five months later, Blair felt compelled to insist publicly that he was “just a guy” amid accusations of influence-peddling for cash.

None of this is to say that the Starmer government didn’t make mistakes. If Labor didn’t know the exact size of the fiscal hole left by the Conservatives, it was clear enough before the election that restructuring public services would require a big tax increase. Too many ministers still think enough is enough blamed the Tories. Too much campaigning and not enough governance, says the old Whitehall hand. Over time, good politics breeds good public relations. The reverse doesn’t hold.

Things will get tougher. Between tax hikes and spending cuts, the unpopular election won’t go away. In office, Starmer finds himself facing the biggest national security threat since the end of the Cold War. Faced with the threat of Vladimir Putin and the NATO alliance The government will have to disdain Trump. spend more on defense. Much more, the money has to come from somewhere.

The government must also invest political capital in restoring Britain’s relationship with the EU. The economic and security cases speak for themselves. So far, however, Starmer has been reluctant to abandon the pre-election mindset that has led Labor to fear accusations that will “sell” them to Brussels.

Not all news is sad. The government has an absolute majority. Down to just 121 seats in the House of Commons, the Conservatives have elected a leader in Cammy Badenoch who many of his MPs have little confidence in. Denying blame for the defeat, the party remains badly divided over how to respond to the growing threat from Nigel Farage’s Reforms on its right wing.

So Starmer has time to navigate the storms. The danger is not so much the enduring charm of popularity as the feeling that power is a prisoner of circumstance. The Prime Minister will never be a great visionary. And vision is not really what Britain needs right now. But in difficult times, governments need to show organizational purpose that goes beyond the usual range of individual politics. There is a perfectly good story to tell about how Britain can find it its path to prosperity again as a modern and significant European nation needs a Narrator.