When I wrote yesterday of the possibility of a “July date with political destiny” I did not expect to be proved right within hours.
But now the gun has been well and truly fired on an election campaign that will bring to an end one of the most turbulent five-year periods for business in living memory. Polls of business leaders suggest they are pretty relaxed about the prospect of Keir Starmer moving into No 10. And in truth most are fed up with a Conservative administration that delivered political chaos, soaring costs, and acute labour shortages.
Only in the past year to 18 months has there been some of the stability that is a necessary condition for the investment that will drive growth, the missing element in Britain’s economic story.
The absence of the “Corbyn factor” makes this a hugely different election to 2019 when businesses and investors were anxious about the risk of “Magic Grandpa” getting his hands on the levers of power.
The London property market enjoyed a mini-boom after that possibility was removed by Boris Johnson’s thumping win, although it was quickly snuffed out by the arrival of Covid a couple of months later.
Rachel Reeves has also done a good job in persuasively casting herself as an “Iron Chancellor” who will not countenance spending being allowed to rip after the election. The deepest concerns about Labour centre on workers’ rights reforms, although changes introduced by Tony Blair’s administration such as the minimum wage, once seen as dangerously radical, could now hardly be more mainstream.
The main danger for Labour may be rapidly disappointed expectations.
Perhaps there will be a week-one rabbit in the hat like Gordon Brown’s Bank of England independence shocker. That gave a sense of new broom energy and momentum to Blair’s incoming team.
Starmer and Reeves will need plenty of that.
