‘Labour puts down the Ming vase and picks up the bat’ – LabourList

Since Keir Starmer was elected Labour leader, the party’s entire political strategy has been that of the ming vase: stay very steady and you won’t be broken.

That can work as an outsider. But when you’ve been given a massive majority, people expect you to use it and use it well. Labour’s unwillingness to do so up to this point has seen them plummet to record-low satisfaction levels in equally record time.

Yet after months of dissatisfaction, infighting, briefing against your own ministers and public scoffing, the Government achieved something quite rare for them with the Budget – positivity.

To make a more contemporaneous analogy: while the Ashes may be a sore spot for us all right now, for the first time since being elected Labour have decided to play more like Ben Stokes than Geoffrey Boycott.

READ MORE: ‘Ending the two-child limit: A victory for decency—and a turning point for Labour’

The Government is already in a position where they have to take big swings. Patting the ball around and nicking a single won’t work when voters asked you to make their lives better and to do it quickly.

In particular it was the actual headline policies introduced at the Budget that went down well; the end of the two-child benefit limit and the introduction of a tourist tax for local governments to levy.

I will admit skin in the game here: these are two policies advocated for by Compass. Naturally, I was delighted to see them both acted on.

But the biggest takeaway from this has to be that, for the first time since what seems like election day last year, people are happy with something the Government is doing because it feels like they’re actually doing something.

It’s a distinct lesson. People elected a Labour Government; they want to see them govern as a Labour Government.

In 2010, voters put the Tories (and the Lib Dems, in a more roundabout way) in power because they wanted economic stability in a turbulent post-crisis era. This is what the Tories have always promised. They rarely deliver it, but that’s their brand. That’s their purpose. They uphold the capitalist order when it gets shaky.

In 2024, voters put Labour in power because they wanted help. They wanted their lives to feel more secure in the post-pandemic era. They were sick of a Conservative behemoth that had only served itself, as it always does. The cost of living was getting impossible, the country felt broken. They wanted Labour to do what Labour does: think big and help people.

A Compass paper authored by Baroness Ruth Lister released back in May provided a comprehensive guide of steps the Government could take to alleviate child poverty in this country. One of these steps was the lifting of the two-child benefit limit. Compass used this paper as the base of its campaign – a campaign that involved wider civil society groups and former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, amongst others.

Yes, it will cost £3bn. But that is three billion pounds with the very tangible effect of immediately lifting 400,000 children out of poverty.

A separate Compass paper criticising the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill’s failure to give people real power in their places featured North East Mayor Kim McGuinness advocating for a ‘visitor levy’. This has been a measure backed by almost every metro mayor in the country, including perhaps the country’s most successful, Greater Manchester’s Andy Burnham. 

And what the introduction of a tourist tax in the Budget does is allow local government a desperately needed level of real autonomy. Labour should want to be remembered as the party that finally gave people real power in their places.

Of course, these swings can get bigger and bigger – and they should. There were points of the Budget that deserve serious critique (the limiting of Cash ISAs and exemption for over-65s, the freezing of student loan repayment levels, no action on the pension triple lock).

Instead, actual income tax rises would have been an incredibly bold step that began to reset the economic order of the country. Taxes on wealth, introducing proportional representation, bringing essential utilities like water back into public ownership; these are all policies Labour members support and would bring about the actual change this country needs.

But Compass and all those across civil society scored massive wins at the Budget, because not only are these policies popular with Labour members, they are the morally correct steps to help people in this country who are feeling like they’re constantly being dragged underwater.

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For this Government, Headingley 2019 has to be the paragon, not Perth 2025. They need to start swinging and hitting everything that comes their way; because they are already this close to losing by eight wickets on the second day.

Labour have a huge majority. Despite what the polls say, Labour have a huge mandate. For their own sake and for all of ours, Labour better use it.

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