As slogans go, it is a tongue-twister. You wouldn’t want to try organising a chant of “Starmer Farmer Harmer” with a group who had been necking bellyfuls of cider. Other jibes against the Labour leader are available, including “Two-Tier Keir”, “Free Gear Keir” and “Gap Year Keir”, the latter a rhyming raspberry about how much of the prime minister’s time is spent at summits abroad.
He is accumulating rude nicknames because he is making enemies. Those approving of his performance as prime minister are currently outnumbered two to one by those expressing disapproval. His party’s most hyperbolic critics are already calling this “the most hated government ever”. That puts King John, Lord North and Liz Truss in their places.
Sir Keir didn’t set out to make enemies. On his way to power, he hoped to be everyone’s friend. Business leaders and trades unionists, city dwellers and rural folk, young and old, the Labour leader was keen to give all the impression that they’d be better off for having a Labour government. There were a few select groups – parents who sent their children to fee-paying schools, non-doms and private equity dealmakers – who were given prior notice that they should expect to pay higher taxes. There were also broad-brush warnings from Sir Keir and Rachel Reeves that a Labour government would have to make “tough choices” and “unpopular decisions”, but a lot of those were left unspecified.
Now tough choices are being revealed and these decisions are indeed proving unpopular. So the government is beset by foes whose discontent is amplified by a largely hostile media. Farmers say they’re furious about a reform to the way inheritances are taxed, though the new regime is still much more generous to them than the rules that apply to other families. Retailers are among those bemoaning the effects of raising employers’ national insurance contributions. Pensioner groups continue to agitate against the means testing of the winter fuel payment. Those cross with the government are being rewarded with huge headlines and loads of airtime to vent their grievances. This is having an impact. When one pollster asked voters to name Labour’s best achievements since it arrived in office, approaching half of the sample responded that the government hadn’t done anything positive at all.
The pervasive mood of negativity masks the fact that significant segments of the population do have reason to be grateful. Renters will no longer be threatened by no-fault eviction. Junior doctors are getting a hefty catch-up increase in their in pay, ending a long-running dispute that debilitated the health service. Patients will get treatment earlier than they might otherwise have done thanks to the cash injection for the NHS ) announced in the budget. The uplift to the national living wage is higher than was expected, with an especially big boost to the rate for 18- to 20-year-olds. Workers will get enhanced protection from unfair dismissal and other bad employment practices. Then there are the parents of primary school age children, who will see a tangible benefit from the Labour government once breakfast clubs are up and running.
You won’t have seen any marches on Parliament Square by thousands of happy winners flourishing placards congratulating the government. Gainers from change tend to be quiet, while the losers are invariably noisy. What’s surprising to some of its concerned supporters is that the government itself is not putting more effort into broadcasting the positives. “I can’t remember a Labour politician being on the media in recent weeks pointing out who’s gained,” says one Labour strategist.
Some contend that Labour would be in a better place had it not boxed itself in by ruling out increases to income tax, VAT or employee national insurance. The argument goes that it would not then have had to target particular groups with vocal lobbies to express their anger about being “singled out”. But I’m rather sceptical that the government would be more popular had the chancellor used her first budget to up the amount of tax deducted from tens of millions of payslips, or made it more expensive to go to the shops. Some say Labour should have been more up front about just how tough it would be to plug the gaping fiscal hole bequeathed by the Tories while also finding additional funds for ailing public services. Conservative-leaning commentators berate Labour for not being “more honest” during the election knowing that it was up against a Tory party that was utterly dishonest in its claims about tax and spend.
To those who follow these things closely, it was clear that Labour was eyeing up the tax breaks for landowners and inheritors of business assets. What if they had been more explicit about this? I very much doubt that farmers would be any less aggrieved had they been given more notice of precisely what Labour intended. They would simply have revved up their tractors earlier. Some, including quite a few ministers, question whether the sums raised from curbing inheritance tax exemptions or curtailing the winter fuel payment are large enough to justify the cost to the government’s political capital. The Treasury retorts that if the money doesn’t come from there, it will have to come from somewhere else, and that won’t be popular either. Though there’s a very long way to go before the next general election, Labour MPs are “getting quite twitchy”, in the words of one of them, about the levels of hostility that they are experiencing. Which leads to anxiety about whether their government is making its case as cleverly and robustly as it could be.
It is not. Ministers are struggling in the propaganda battle being waged over the farmers not just because welly-clad protesters bringing young children on toy tractors to Westminster are catnip for the media. Different arms of government have issued clashing estimates of how many people will be affected, lending credence to their opponents’ charge that they don’t know what they are doing to a community that Labour doesn’t understand. Before they embark on measures that are bound to excite opposition, ministers need to be more adept at getting their ducks in a row. The restriction of winter fuel payments will almost certainly shoot back up the agenda as the weather gets colder. That decision would have landed with less of a thump had the announcement not been dropped out of nowhere and been nuanced to mitigate the effect on the band of poorer pensioners hit by the change.
after newsletter promotion
Another critique heard within Labour circles is that there are a lot of first-time ministers too preoccupied with learning how to be administrators to remember that they are also supposed to be politicians. Attacks are too often answered with managerial and bloodless arguments when the government as a collective should be on the front foot proselytising its choices. Says one insider who wants his party to up its game: “In government, you can never take a fire-and-forget approach.” Says another: “In this media environment, you’ve got to be out there all the time constantly explaining your positions.” Many Labour MPs would like more of their top team to emulate the confrontational, gloves-off style that comes naturally to Angela Rayner and is on pyrotechnical display whenever she substitutes for Sir Keir at PMQs.
Kemi Badenoch, Sir Ed Davey and Nigel Farage have all clambered aboard the farmers’ bandwagon. This ill-matched trio are also united in opposition to the increase in employers’ national insurance contributions. Labour is entitled to ask: if they don’t like these tax rises, which other taxes would they be hiking instead? If they don’t like any tax rises, what would they be slashing from public spending? Veterans of past Labour governments worry that this one only plays defence when it should be remorseless in taking the fight into its critics’ territory.
Even with improvements to how the government communicates its case, Labour will have to live with unpopularity for the foreseeable future. The party’s MPs will have to get used to relentless bombardment from those who resist change while receiving little visible gratitude from groups who are benefiting. The party’s ratings are unlikely to start moving in a more positive direction until large numbers of voters begin to experience palpable improvements to their lives. Sir Keir should expect to be the target of more and nastier nicknames. At least he now knows the wisdom of an old adage. If you are in politics and want a friend, get a dog.