Let us be clear; this is not a reboot nor a relaunch; still less is it an admission that things aren’t going to plan. At least that’s the word from Labour about the PM’s exciting launch of his six policy “milestones” or targets today at a film studio, along with an uncomfortable-looking cabinet.
This replaces Sir Keir Starmer’s last lot of pledges/targets/milestones, and I confess, I have forgotten what they are. Leaders are forever making pledges, which most of us would describe as hostages to fortune, unless they’re in the bag already. Rishi Sunak had, I think, five, of which I remember two and a half: “stop the boats” and get inflation down and cut hospital waiting lists of some sort. It didn’t help him.
Mostly, setting targets is a bad thing. It means our attention is being diverted to one measure of success rather than others. And the PM’s targets may not be ours. We’ll decide what’s important come the next election, thank you. And I’ve got my own little list of things that Sir Keir has somehow not made into a pledge, presumably on the basis that they’re just too hard.
One is immigration. I’d like net migration reduced to David Cameron’s target of tens of thousands a year please, which given it’s nearer 700,000 a year, is quite ambitious. But that would concentrate his mind. Another is prisons; they’re dangerously overcrowded. I’d like more built.
I’d also like an overhaul of the criminal justice system, which isn’t working. And – on the back of Fraser Nelson’s brilliant Despatches programme for Channel 4 – I’d like to see the benefits system overhauled so that three million people will no longer be claiming long-term sickness benefits, three quarters of them being on the basis of mental health.
I would like new housing only in a form that would satisfy King Charles
I’d like people obliged to take work or go on much lower benefits. I would like new housing only in a form that would satisfy King Charles, viz, done with an eye to beauty and the historic character of an area, not just Angela Rayner’s sprawling estates.
But you know what? Those things aren’t going to happen. Welfare reform is the toughest job in politics followed closely by immigration. These things are about hard choices, and that’s not what this rebrand – or refocussing – is about.
So, the metrics by which we’re meant to be assessing Sir Keir’s performance are the following:
1) bolster disposable household income;
2) ensure that 92 per cent of routine NHS operations and appointments will take place within 18 weeks by March 2029;
3) build 1.5 million homes by the end of this parliament;
4) decarbonise the electricity supplies by 2030;
5) raise the number of children who are ready for school at five from 67 per cent now to 75 per cent;
6) put 13,000 bobbies on the beat.
There are a couple of things that strike you. One is how weirdly specific some of these targets are. The ambition to bolster our spending power is nice and simple… come the next election, will we have more money which isn’t eaten up by rent and heating bills? We can grasp that. But getting 92 per cent of routine NHS appointments met within 18 weeks? Why 92, why 18? God knows.
As for the business of children being ready for school at five, it’s a problem that most of us didn’t know we had. More bobbies on the beat… I shall welcome my named, contactable officer if he or she turns up but I have actually heard this promise from every single Met Commissioner on taking the job for the last 30 years; it never happens.
But the other problem is that achieving one target means missing others. So, if we’re aiming for those routine appointments and operations, the word is that this will mean putting more pressure on A&E. How about simply improving the efficiency and accountability of the NHS?
You know it would save time if Sir Keir simply made a promise to be better on most important things than the Tories were. It’s a bar so low even he is unlikely to fail.
