What Happened to Ending the Chaos?

Ben Wildsmith

You have to wonder how some people land jobs, don’t you? As we battle through life, confronting incompetence at every turn, it becomes chillingly apparent how imperfectly the facility to pass interviews correlates with an ability, or even willingness, to do the actual work.

This is especially true of politicians, whose jobs entail an almost permanent interview process whereby they start campaigning for the next election the second they’ve assumed office.

Political campaigning has, over the last few decades, lost most of its substance. After a period when manifesto pledges were routinely abandoned, parties now make sure not to promise anything at all that can be quantified. In place of economic theories and social commitments, we are invited to vote for politicians on vibes alone.

So, after the party-hard, regret nothing hedonism of the Boris/Rishi years, we were offered Sir Keir Starmer as a cold shower in the police cells. His bespectacled, lawyerly gravity offered tough love to an electorate that has been conditioned to expect penance for the sins of their betters. The aristocracy has erred, so we must suffer…

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Dull

Labour’s governance, we were told, would be dull in a good way. It would be as sensible, solid, and dependable as underwear from Marks & Sparks. The party was over; it was time to roll up our sleeves and get on with the grinding toil of life on a struggling post-industrial island. It would be hard, but we would thank ourselves in the long run. We would learn to appreciate a satsuma at Christmas.

Being a looooooooooooooooooong way to the left of Starmer, myself, I expected to be frustrated by his government. The election campaign, and Starmer’s political journey to that point, suggested that we’d be in for a mild type of social democracy that was heavy on aspirations for social justice but cautious in delivering them. Above all though, the optics suggested that, however uninspiring, this government would be competent and predictable. It would steady the ship.

If that was the job interview spiel, let’s have a look at how they have actually behaved in office.

Whilst the manifesto was very vague about the specifics of a programme for government, Starmer ruled out a number of potential policies during the campaign. Promising not to raise a host of specific taxes, the government’s only route to avoiding further austerity is to stimulate growth in the economy.

It is curious that a politician who is defined in the public consciousness by his opposition to Brexit should rule out a return to the Single Market just as opinion polls suggest that the public supports it.

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Self-harm

Brexit was barely an issue during the election, which Labour was virtually guaranteed to win in any case. So, blocking a swift route to growth for fear of offending voters who likely opted for Reform UK seems like an act of self-harm.

The government’s only quantified pledge to the nation is to build 1.5 million new homes which it hopes will ease the housing crisis whilst stimulating the economy nationwide. The key to this, they claim, is loosening planning regulations so that building isn’t needlessly delayed or prevented by local authorities.

That is a laudable aim but likely unachievable owing to shortages in the workforce ranging from contractors to, crucially, planning officers. If spades do hit the ground in numbers, however, it will take time for economic benefits to filter through society.

In the meantime, the government is in need of cash, and its solution was to raise employers’ National Insurance contributions. Now, here I’d like to ask for some help from the Labour-supporting commentators who routinely accuse me of enabling the Tories by existing in a monastic fantasy world of socialist purism. Please explain how the government’s prime directive to stimulate growth is aided by putting up tax on employing people.

How are investors attracted by making labour more expensive?

Chastening

The market response to Rachel Reeves’ handling of the economy has been chastening. We are now borrowing money at higher rates than during the infamous Liz Truss crash.

This is emphatically not what was suggested at the job interview, is it?

A hastily arranged trip to China saw the Chancellor trying to whip up some business to offset this state of affairs. Here, the dysfunction of the government’s economic policies found company with its baffling approach to foreign affairs.

The trip yielded a supposed £700 million in financial commitments: the governmental equivalent of a couple of bottles of olive oil in Lidl. The trip took place two weeks before the inauguration of Donald Trump; the same Donald Trump who is obsessively hostile to China and threatening tariffs on any countries he feels are acting against American interests.

Yes, you might say, but Donald Trump is a bad man, and it is refreshing that we should be ignoring American pressure for once.

Well, OK, but whatever misgivings you might have about the incoming American administration, it isn’t forcing people into labour camps based on their ethnicity just yet, is it?

Our government’s willingness to do business with the Chinese sits uneasily with its rhetoric over Ukraine. Over China, we are encouraged to believe they are wholly pragmatic, whereas in Ukraine Starmer poses as a defender of liberty, willing to risk all in a noble cause.

The great pragmatist has sent £15bn to Ukraine so far with a further commitment of £3.5bn per year ad infinitum.

On the one hand, we are to believe we are so broke that we have to do business with an authoritarian, genocidal regime, whilst cutting fuel payments to pensioners. On the other, we can make open-ended commitments in support of a war which most observers agree has already been lost.

This week’s bizarre 100-year commitment to Ukraine is unprecedented in diplomatic history. It is perfectly possible that neither Ukraine, the UK, nor nation states in general will exist in 100 years’ time.

Aside from cementing our place at number one on Russia’s ‘to bomb’ list it is difficult to see what such absurd posturing is supposed to achieve for either Ukraine or the UK.

Detached as we are from the EU, antagonising Russia is a dangerous business at the best of times. It is rendered all the more perilous if the UK’s relationship with America deteriorates.

It is reported that the outgoing UK Ambassador has been invited to Trump’s inauguration, whilst the President elect mulls the virtues of refusing the appointment of her successor, Lord Mandelson.

Trump is naturally aware that 200 Labour Party operatives travelled to assist Kamala Harris’s campaign and if we accept Keir Starmer’s claim that they did so independently, the president will have noted that nobody acted to stop them.

The interview suggested a calm, reasoned candidate for the job at hand.

Having been forced to fire his Chief of Staff within weeks, Starmer’s government looks rudderless and worryingly out of its depth. This week, it partially capitulated to Elon Musk’s demands, we will shortly see how it responds to the inevitable punitive pressure applied to the UK by a president who feels slighted and smells weakness.

Far from ‘ending the chaos’, as its election slogan promised, this government is marching us towards isolation and penury.

 The new book From The Senedd to the Roofs by Ben Wildsmith is available here