Nothing screams the end of summer more than a prime minister giving a speech marked “state of the nation”. Especially when that speech could just as well have been made a week later. Give us all a chance to enjoy the start of the Paralympics. Feel the last warmth of a cooling sun. Not think about how hopelessly shit everything is for a few more days. We could all have done with more of a break. Maybe it was revenge. Keir Starmer had his holiday ruined so he was determined to ruin ours.
It wasn’t as if Starmer had anything new to say. He’s spent much of the past seven weeks telling us all that things are even worse than he had imagined and Tuesday’s speech was basically more of the same. By now we have all lost count of the number of black holes he has found in the country’s finances.
Was the £22bn shortfall the same as last week’s £22bn shortfall? Or was it a completely different £22bn? After a while all the numbers start merging into one another. God knows where we file the extra £5bn spent on servicing debt. And we’ve known for some time that a punishment budget was coming down the line. So why keep reminding us?
Then again, politicians are a different breed to the rest of us. When we go back to work we do so silently. We don’t feel the need to make a big song and dance about our return. The reappearance of a slumbering hero. Expecting thanks and applause for bothering to come back on the day we said we would. To do the job we are employed to do.
Not so the governing class. They live in fear that people will assume they are doing nothing unless they keep up a running commentary on their latest manoeuvres. They neither trust us nor, it seems, themselves. They demand our attention. They only know they are doing their job if they can read about themselves in the papers.
So Starmer’s speech was as much for himself as it was for us. More so in fact. We would have been quite happy to do without it. He would have been devastated to miss out on the opportunity. For a man who is often so critical of performative politics, he is quite the performer. It rather goes with the job. Still at least he can stay in role. When you’re being told the country is dying on its feet, it’s reassuring that the messenger has the natural demeanour of a professional undertaker.
Just after 10am the prime minister stepped out into the Downing Street garden. Carefully stepping round the broken swing that has been rusting for several years. Trying to avoid the smashed vodka bottles.
After a moment’s prayerful silence, Starmer began speaking. The location was no coincidence. Fifty members of the public and the media were gathered in the garden to remind us we had moved on from the sleaze and indulgence of the Tory government. From now on the garden would be a place of solemnity. A very serious garden. A symbol of service. A place from which frivolity would be banned. No smiles allowed. Keir was here to show he meant business. Everything he did, he did it for us. Very Bryan Adams.
Things weren’t just worse than he had imagined, he said. They were even worse than he hadn’t imagined. So much so that things were going to continue getting worse before they could get better. This is really only the undiluted truth that a prime minister with a landslide majority could make in their first few months in office. He sounded like the builder who says you need a completely new roof after you’d called him in to clean the gutters. Too much more of this and some Labour MPs will start to get twitchy. This wasn’t exactly the message during the general election campaign.
Still, Keir did have some good news. He had at least identified the cause of all the problems. The Tories. They had left the country flatlining in A&E. Their cheap populism had been behind the recent riots. He had been left with a prison service that didn’t even have enough room for all the offenders. So he would have to inflict more pain on the country to make things better. He was sorry about pensioners losing their winter fuel allowance but old people would have to choose between keeping warm and having a functioning NHS. Right now, they couldn’t have both.
“Look,” said Keir. “This isn’t the position I wanted to be in.” Him and us both. But we were where we were. The budget was going to be painful. Higher taxes for sure. Probably some cuts thrown in. It was all a bit reminiscent of the early days of David Cameron and George Osborne. And look how the country ended up after them.
Come the end, there was time for a few questions from the media. Most focused on the forthcoming budget. Where were the tax rises going to hit? Keir gave these short shrift. He had been quite clear. There would be no increases to income tax, national insurance or VAT. So that clearly meant the rises would be piled on everything else. Duh! Hardly a surprise.
With that, Keir was off. A good morning’s work for him. Even if the rest of us would have rather he remained on holiday. We get it. Honest, we do. Everything’s rubbish. And is going to get more rubbish. Salvation is a long way off.
