It’s hard to say that the honeymoon is over, because it never really began. You can’t blame Labour for that: it warned voters before the election not to get their hopes up, and it has stood firm against the menace of optimism ever since. Keir Starmer’s idea of whispering sweet nothings into the nation’s ear is to tell them that, “Frankly things will get worse” before they get better, that pain is on the way. Just this week, he braced the TUC for “tough decisions on the horizon”. And they say romance is dead.
The new government’s deeds have matched its words. This week, Labour whipped its MPs to vote for the scrapping of the winter fuel allowance for all but the poorest pensioners, not long after those same MPs were barred from lifting the two-child limit on benefits. It came just as the health secretary gave a gloomy prognosis of the state of the NHS. None of this is filling the country with enthusiasm. According to YouGov, just 19% approve of the government’s record so far, dwarfed by the 55% who disapprove.
