Towards the end of 1989, the Stone Roses were on the cusp of being the biggest band in Britain. Having just played a massive show at Alexandra Palace, they were asked to perform their song Made of Stone live on a BBC culture and arts programme called The Late Show. This was going to be their national TV debut and expectations were huge.
But on the night in question, after only a minute, an internal power cut in the studio interrupted their performance, causing the band to stop and look at the panic-stricken BBC technicians with collective Mancunian indignation. Ian Brown, the singer, snorting with derision, said, without needing any amplification: “We’re wasting our time, lads. Amateurs!”
It’s a feeling many of us have had recently. Spend any time in the bars and restaurants of Westminster, hang out in the Lobby, or convene with anyone involved in the business of business, and you’ll hear a familiar refrain: “This Government don’t know what they’re doing.” Or, to quote a friend of mine who runs a medium-sized pr company in London, and who is already becoming extremely vocal about the effect the National Insurance hike is going to have on his business, “They’re wet behind the ears. They make great play of supporting the working man, but the working man they’re imagining is either dressed in a blue collar or working for the state. They’ve obviously never done a day’s work in their life.”
From Foreign Secretary David Lammy’s inability to successfully distance himself from his damning remarks about Donald Trump, to Sir Keir Starmer’s apparent reluctance to engage with the incoming president, to the Government’s cack-handed attempts to kickstart the economy, Labour’s performance after just five months is causing even their supporters to question whether or not they actually know how to govern.
Fold in the delay over the defence review, a collective resistance to getting people back into offices, inheritance tax (bonkers, ruinous), a petulant campaign to punish non-doms, a bewildering inability to acknowledge the positive effects of trickle-down economics (meaning many of London’s rich are moving to more tax-efficient havens in Italy and the UAE), and the concerns only increase.
As our leader writer Jack Kessler said last week regarding the farming crisis: “This is the same Labour Party that months ago was courting the rural vote, with Starmer promising a ‘new relationship with the countryside and farming communities’ based on ‘respect and on genuine partnership’. How times have changed. Starmer appears to have ditched any pretence to be a champion of rural England.”
The biggest worries about the Government involve their attitude towards the economy
International diplomacy aside, the biggest worries about the Government involve their attitude towards the economy. In fact, Rachel Reeves’s behaviour is so cavalier one wonders if she’s being advised by the ghost of Liz Truss. The Chancellor — in her finite wisdom — claimed companies would be able to absorb the costs of the NI tax rises by accepting reduced profits and making efficiencies, ignoring the reason companies are involved in business in the first place. After all, philanthropy is a thing that comes around, briefly, every Christmas, and is not the reason the CEOs of Tesco, Marks & Spencer, Sainsbury’s, Asda, Next, Amazon, Boots, Lidl, Aldi, Morrisons and all the other high street retailers who have warned the Government about the fallout from this lunacy get up in the morning.
My personal bugbear is the Business Secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, who has never held down a job in the private sector. After studying Politics and Modern History in Manchester, he worked for the council before training as a solicitor. Reynolds served on Labour’s National Executive Committee from 2003 to 2005, then became an MP.
Before Labour unveiled its Employment Rights Bill, Reynolds had the misfortune to claim that allowing flexible working and working from home creates a more productive, loyal workforce. He said that employers “need to judge people on outcomes and not a culture of presenteeism”. The bill included measures such as a right to “disconnect” outside working hours, a ban on zero-hours contracts and allowing workers to compress their contracted hours into fewer working days.
Reynolds knows as much about business as Robert F Kennedy Jr knows about healthcare
Obviously, business groups raised concerns about the plans, warning it could push up the cost of hiring staff and have the unintended consequence of ending overtime. But then they would, because they’re in business, and tend to know what they’re talking about. I’d venture that Reynolds knows as much about business as Robert F Kennedy Jr knows about healthcare.
I think the biggest problem the current administration has is its reliance on the old-school incoming government playbook. This orthodoxy determines that when you assume power you go hard and fast, without listening to the chorus of disapproval. This usually works because the government will probably be having its honeymoon period; the issue with Starmer’s team is that they experienced their own honeymoon before they moved into No 10. Which is why they currently look like they don’t know what they’re doing.
Starmer was brilliant in opposition, quickly detoxifying his party, kicking out most of the fruit-loops and organising his team with care and consideration. He got match-fit by getting beach-body ready. But now he simply looks like he turned up to play wearing someone else’s big boy pants and a pair of dirty plimsolls.
Starmer campaigned on a variety of co-dependent pillars, all of which were deliberately framed by a sanctimonious promise to do things properly. Central to his pitch was good governance, but five months in, this government is starting to look like a bunch of school kids. Or BBC technicians.
Dylan Jones is editor-in-chief of The London Standard
