Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
Forget the polls. I’ve found an easier way to predict elections. If a political party gets a sudden influx of better-looking people, with keen youngsters in suits hoping to be selected for a parliamentary seat, it’s going to win. It’s what happened to Blair’s New Labour in 1995, a couple of year’s before his landslide, Cameron’s Conservatives in 2007, and now Starmer’s Labour in 2023.
The contrast between Labour’s party conference in Liverpool and that of the Conservatives in Manchester could not have been greater. Where the Tories were a chaotic rabble, squabbling in factions, Labour were so professional, so disciplined that I expected even the guy selling the Socialist Worker to be on message. The audience cheered Rachel Reeves when she told them they wouldn’t be allowed to spend money; applauded Sir Keir Starmer when he backed Israel; and made the Red Flag sound more like a hymn than a protest song.
Labour are looking like winners. They are also looking competent. Their secret weapon is a group of middle-aged women in sensible shoes who really know their brief. If Starmer becomes prime minister his cabinet will include the highly experienced Yvette Cooper, who served under Gordon Brown; Liz Kendall, who has provided a grown-up challenge to the government over social care; the capable lawyer Shabana Mahmood; and Thangam Debbonaire, who would become the first professional cellist to be culture secretary. In Reeves, the standout star, Labour has a shadow chancellor whose endorsement by Mark Carney was a strangely partisan act from a former Bank of England governor, but is testament to his admiration for her deep, unwavering seriousness.
What a relief. The whirlwind of Tory administrations in recent years sent a stream of underprepared MPs into broadcast studios, gaping at the camera as they tried to remember which ministry they had just been reshuffled into. Starmer seems to have picked a shadow cabinet whose jobs bear some resemblance to their expertise.
There is a luxury in opposition, of course. Having become plausible only recently, Labour is still not being asked many difficult questions. Can a party really change its spots so rapidly? En route to power, everyone marches to the same tune. Once in office, Starmer’s challenge will be to face down the inevitable demands for cash and to meet his ambitious growth targets by winning business confidence.
His vision became a bit clearer this week. An overhaul of planning laws to unleash a massive programme of housebuilding — hopefully in the form of homes that look more “Georgian” and less Lego block. A big push on green technologies. NHS reforms driven through by Wes Streeting, whose determination may overcome the lack of cash he will be able to spend to sweeten the pill, unlike during the Blair era.
Reeves’ and Starmer’s big message has been the need for a partnership between business and government. Private sector investment is needed in diagnostics and digital systems for the NHS; in upgrading the energy grid; in life sciences and manufacturing. Every shadow minister I met this week repeated that a Labour government must provide the stability and certainty that enterprise needs. They are right, of course — although some looked so dazed that I began to wonder whether Reeves had implanted a chip into their brains.
Not everyone agrees. Sharon Graham, general secretary of Unite, was given a standing ovation in Liverpool for demanding that electricity and gas be renationalised. The motion passed, on a show of hands, though it won’t be in the manifesto. But Graham heads a powerful trade union. Reeves vs Graham would be a fight between two formidable women.
Graham also questioned whether Starmer is committed to working people. This is surprising, given his party has already promised a raft of significant new employment rights within its first 100 days. Anyone who thinks this is simply about abolishing zero-hours contracts should look closely.
The New Deal For Working People, overseen by deputy leader Angela Rayner, seems to jar with the party’s professed desire to attract business. It includes changes to the Equality Act, to procurement rules, sick pay, strike laws, and the rights of workers made redundant or bringing claims of unfair dismissal. It will introduce stronger collective bargaining, a higher minimum wage and the ludicrous “right to disconnect”.
Individually, some of these policies make sense. Collectively, they would burden business. And the timing is odd. Post-Covid, tight labour markets have already shifted some power from capital to labour. Post-Brexit, the UK’s flexible labour market is one of our only remaining attractions.
Has that debate actually been thrashed out inside Labour? It’s not clear. Rayner and Reeves seem to sit in different silos.
Starmer has done a remarkable job in making his party electable again — and his grip is extensive. Aware that a landslide victory could turn unnoticed no-hopers into MPs, his office is blocking hard-left candidates from parliamentary shortlists. He is also proving to be a lucky general: Labour’s by-election victory in Scotland came at just the right moment to boost morale.
Britain is in limbo. The government limps on, valiantly trying to do sensible things but looking increasingly out of puff. Meanwhile, the opposition seems to be having a honeymoon before it’s even in power.
Momentum is a bit of a dirty word, having been co-opted by the Corbynistas. But there is no doubt: Labour has got it.
