NNothing screams the end of summer louder than a Prime Minister giving a State of the Union speech. Especially when that speech could just as easily have been given a week later. Give us all a chance to enjoy the start of the Paralympics. Feel the last warmth of a cooling sun. Don’t spend another few days thinking about how hopelessly fucked everything is. We could all have used a longer 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 has spent the last seven weeks telling us all that things are even worse than he imagined and Tuesday’s speech was essentially nothing different. By now we have all lost track of the number of black holes he has found in the country’s finances.
Was the £22 billion deficit the same as last week’s? Or was it a completely different £22 billion? After a while, all the numbers blur together. God knows where we’ll put the extra £5 billion spent servicing the debt. And we’ve known for some time that a punitive budget is coming, so why are we constantly reminded of it?
On the other hand, politicians are a different breed from the rest of us. When we go back to work, we do so quietly. We don’t feel the need to make a fuss about our return. The re-emergence of a sleeping hero. We expect thanks and applause for making the effort to come back on the day we said we would. To do the job we were hired to do.
The ruling class is different. They live in fear that if they do not comment on their latest maneuvers, people will assume they are doing nothing. They do not trust us or, it seems, themselves. They demand our attention. They only know they are doing their job when they can read about themselves in the newspapers.
So Starmer’s speech was as much for himself as it was for us. More so, actually. We would have loved to have done without it. He would have been devastated if he had missed the opportunity. For a man who is often so critical of performative politics, he is quite a performer. It’s more part of his job. But at least he gets to stay in character. When you hear that the country is dying, it’s reassuring that the bearer of the news has the natural demeanor of a professional undertaker.
Shortly after 10am, the Prime Minister entered the garden at Downing Street. He carefully walked around the broken swing, which had been rusting away for several years, trying to avoid the broken vodka bottles.
After a moment of reverent silence, Starmer began to speak. The location was no accident. Fifty members of the public and media had gathered in the garden to remind us that we had said goodbye to the meanness and indulgence of the Tory government. From now on, the garden would be a place of celebration. A very serious garden. A symbol of service. A place where frivolity would be forbidden. Smiling was not allowed. Keir was here to show he meant business. Everything he did, he did for us. Very Bryan Adams.
Things were not just worse than he had imagined, he said. They were worse than he had not imagined. So much so that things would get worse before they could get better. That is really just the raw truth that a Prime Minister could overwhelmingly proclaim in his first few months in office. He sounded like the builder who says you need a whole new roof after you’ve called him to clean the gutters. If that happens too often, some Labour MPs will start to get nervous. That was not exactly the message during the election campaign.
Still, Keir had some good news. He had at least identified the root cause of all the problems: the Tories. They had left the country with a stagnant emergency department. Their cheap populism was the reason for the recent unrest. He had a prison service that didn’t even have enough space for all the offenders. So he had to inflict more suffering on the country to make things better. He was sorry that pensioners were losing their winter allowance, but old people had to choose between warmth and a functioning NHS. At the moment they couldn’t have both.
“Look,” said Keir. “This is not the position I wanted to be in.” Him and both of us. But we were where we were. The budget was going to be painful. Higher taxes, for sure. Probably some cuts too. It was all a bit reminiscent of the early days of David Cameron and George Osborne. And look what the country has become after them.
At the end there was time for a few questions from the media. Most of them were about the upcoming budget. Where would the tax rises hit? Keir addressed this briefly. He had been very clear. There would be no rises in income tax, national insurance or VAT. So that meant the rises would be on everything else. Of course! That was hardly a surprise.
And with that, Keir was gone. A good morning’s work for him. Even if the rest of us would have preferred him to stay on vacation. We get it. Honestly, we get it. Everything sucks. And it’s going to get even more sucky. Redemption is still a long way off.
