Without fanfare, boring politics is back. The Tories are identifying problems they then seek to fix. Labour is responding by saying it is nothing more than a sticking plaster. This is the accusation that will run until the next general election. In his article in the New Statesman in which he announced his missions, Sir Keir Starmer decried the “sticking plaster politics” of the Government. He used the phrase again in his response to the Budget. The terms of trade are being set down.
Every opposition party with a serious claim on power makes the claim that the country is broken. Britain is never really broken as such — it’s an almost meaningless phrase, when you think about it — but it’s a necessary exaggeration. Unless something is broken there’s no need for new management to come in and put it right. “Sticking-plaster politics” is a new variant on this old theme, which is a more subtle criticism.
