Keir Starmer’s caution as leader of Labour has carried the party to the brink of power and his team are already looking ahead to their first 100 days in government
Labour minds are turning to the first 100 days in Government even as the party declares there must be no complacency ahead of Thursday’s General Election.
The public caution is understandable when the party is used to losing contests, last winning in 2005 and Keir Starmer would be only the seventh Labour Prime Minister in a country that has had 57 since Robert Walpole debuted in 1721. Yet privately the leader’s senior lieutenants accept what is left to play for is the scale of the triumph.
No-drama Starmer wouldn’t be human if he didn’t think ahead. His vow to “hit the ground running” illustrates a recognition that early impressions are lasting whether Labour’s majority is a single MP or, as many large polls are projecting, tops Tony Blair’s 1997 record of 179 seats.
Battered Rishi Sunak may wrongly believe Britain is better than in 2010 when it plainly isn’t (cost of living, knackered NHS, rising poverty, Brexit, housing crisis, potholes, violent crime, etc, etc, etc), as many Tory soon-to-be ex-MPs doubt even this outgoing PM really thinks they are in with a shout.
Starmer the cautious Arsenal fan who carefully carried that precious Ming vase over a polished floor, will in Downing Street be able, confided a sagacious veteran of the last Labour Government hoping to play a role in the next, to change the mood music. To invert a slogan of US politician Mario Cuomo, Starmer campaigned in prose to govern in poetry. Under-promising in the manifesto to over-deliver in office is a strategy intended to receive high marks when Labour’s homework is marked by voters in four or five years.
The flurry of announcements in July leading to a King’s Speech on the 17th – building houses and improving job rights high on the list – will accelerate momentum from the election result. Ending the junior doctors’ strikes would be early evidence of dealing with the inherited mess. Interest rates falling, as they’re likely, will be a boost. Scrapping Rwanda saves money with few buying it would stop the boats.
Progress on Starmer’s missions will zig-zag, he admits quietly, but maintaining the direction of travel will deliver dividends. Labour winning power after inheriting the fewest Labour seats since 1935 is a hell of an achievement. Government is no walk in the park but Labour reshaping Britain for the better was out of reach in opposition. From Friday, opportunity knocks.
