Just why has Keir Starmer’s government proved such a catastrophe? This is a question that must be posed to his cheerleaders, or at least those who were at one time cheerleaders: the road from the last general election is lined with silently discarded pompoms. The idea here is not to rub their faces in a political project that is now both electorally toxic and morally bankrupt, but to determine what happens next.
First off, the failure should be considered absolute. It is projected that a Labour government will drive more than a million Britons into – or more deeply into – poverty through an assault on disability benefits. The same government imposed hardship on many pensioners by stripping away the winter fuel payment, and it refuses to reverse the Tories’ two-child benefit cap, the UK’s biggest single generator of child poverty. Not content with waging war on the poor only at home, the government opened a new front abroad by slashing the international aid budget. It also can’t bring itself to condemn Israel for a single crime – including deliberate starvation – and continues to supply crucial components for F-35 jet fighters to rain more death on Gaza’s traumatised survivors. The government not only demonises immigration and promotes punitive crackdowns, but it also echoes the rhetoric of Enoch Powell. It does all of this while its polling collapses to the low 20s, with Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party boasting a 10-point lead over it in one poll.
