After the landslide comes the hard work - can Labour revive Britain?

The cheers and jubilation that greeted Keir Starmer’s Downing Street arrival were still ringing in the new Prime Minister's ears as the black door of Number 10 closed and he got down to work. For a brief moment he could savour Labour's thumping general election victory that had given him 412 MPs, but the flag-waving enthusiasm of his supporters outside and the public beyond the gates would have been quickly forgotten as he assessed the scale of the task ahead. After 14 years of at times chaotic and dysfunctional Conservative rule, largely caused by the fallout from Brexit, Mr Starmer has the task of curing Britain’s ailments . He immediately set about that by insisting on continuity among his ministers, who had held the shadow posts in opposition. Mr Starmer’s promise to immediately energise Britain was enacted on his first full day in office with the unusual step of holding a weekend cabinet meeting followed by a press conference. Labour’s time in office will not be without its challenges. Immigrants are still crossing the English Channel in record numbers, prisons are dangerously full, the National Health Service has very long waiting lists and the global threats are high, both from war and climate change. While he won a landslide in terms of seats – 412 – Mr Starmer, 61, will also have to contend with the fact that this was done with 500,000 fewer votes than his hard-left predecessor Jeremy Corbyn won in 2109, such are the quirks of Britain’s electoral system. But that idiosyncrasy also meant that despite winning four million votes in a low-turnout election of 60 per cent, the hard-right Reform party secured only five MPs as opposed to 98 under a proportional representation voting system. Furthermore, four Labour MPs lost their seats to pro-Gaza activists standing as independents warning that this was “just the beginning” of a protest vote over Mr Starmer’s stance on Israel. British politics is also potentially fracturing away from the two-party system, with Labour winning just 34 per cent of the vote but almost two thirds of seats, that some will argue produces a democratic deficit. Meanwhile, the Conservatives will seek some comfort in not having a total catastrophe, with 121 seats, although the looming leadership election following Rishi Sunak’s resignation as party leader could yet lead to further fissures. Above all else, Labour will need to boost Britain’s sluggish economy in order to carry out the many reforms and programmes that it has promised. That job will fall to the first female Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves, who despite warning that she will inherit an ailing economy, will in fact find one that is growing the fastest among G7 countries. But that does not shy from the point that growth has been in serious decline for decades, going from nearly 5 per cent when Tony Blair entered Downing Street in 1997 to just over 1 per cent today. Ms Reeves, 45, will also want to avoid taking Britain further into the red, as the national debt is already just short of 100 per cent of GDP. If she wants to stand out as the chancellor who reversed Britain’s ailing productivity then she needs to reform building planning rules for growth. She has a number of initiatives in mind but growth will take time before it can turn into higher tax receipts. That increased income will be needed for the country to address the NHS difficulties including nearly eight million people on waiting lists for operations. The new Health Secretary, Wes Streeting, who described the NHS as “broken”, will be called on to conduct some potentially harsh reforms, which the Conservatives were unable to do. But foremost will be concluding the junior doctors' strike that has hampered operations, with the medics demanding a 35 per cent pay rise. Mr Streeting, 41, might have some sympathy for them, having been treated by the NHS for kidney cancer three years ago, but he knows there is no extra cash. Negotiation will be key. Something that will not require any further discussion is the Rwanda deportation scheme in which Rishi Sunak invested so much unnecessary political capital with his “Stop the Boats” campaign. Labour will immediately axe the scheme but will be challenged over how to combat the number of crossing the English Channel, which has reached 14,000 this year, a 21 per cent increase on last year, with the busy summer season about to start. Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, 55, a veteran of the last Labour government, will be in charge of leading a new 1,000-strong command of MI5 officers, border officials, investigators and police to target the people smuggling gangs. “The Rwanda scheme was an extortionate gimmick,” the Home Office said. “Over two years, five people were sent to Rwanda at a cost of at least £60m a person. “If the last prime minister had believed it would work, he wouldn't have called an election before a flight went off.” It said all but two of 218 detainees were bailed during the election campaign. Harsh choices will also be faced by Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood, 43, who became Britain’s first female Muslim MP in 2010, with the prison population just days away from dangerous overcrowding. She will have to make the difficult decision to release prisoners early by allowing non-violent criminals out after serving just 40 per cent of their jail terms rather than half. Ms Mahmood, who has previously disclosed how her Muslim faith “drives me to public service”, will seek to push through plans to build new prisons that will increase places by 12,000 from the current total of 95,000. Key to productivity, will be to enact a huge building programme with the promise of 1.5 million more homes, including more affordable housing for young people, in the five-year parliamentary term. Leading this will be Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner, 44, who will seek to reform planning rules to allow new houses on “green belt” sites, although this will come up against bitter local opposition. She will team up with Energy Secretary Ed Miliband to free up the regulations to build more renewable energy outlets including onshore wind farms and more nuclear power stations. Mr Miliband, 54, will also have £8.3 billion to spend when Labour’s new British public energy company is established. It is on the international stage that Mr Starmer’s government might undergo its greatest examination. Foreign Secretary David Lammy will be thrown into the heat of the Gaza-Israel war and into deciding, alongside Mr Starmer, when to recognise a Palestinian state. That war could also spread into Lebanon with the risk of a greater Middle East conflagration. Mr Lammy, 51, will also have to address events beyond his control. France could well soon have a hard-right government and Donald Trump’s march towards a second presidency presents a significant threat to the Nato alliance and war in Ukraine. The new Defence Secretary, John Healey, will also have to seek reforms to the below-par armed forces, particularly the army that has shrunk to 72,000 soldiers and would struggle to field an armoured brigade. Before he can get his teeth into the job, Mr Healey, 60, will fly to Washington this week for the Nato summit, along with Mr Starmer, where Labour will come under pressure to increase defence spending from 2.3 to 2.5 per cent of GDP to meet the Russian threat. He will be guided on those decisions by a strategic defence review but before that comes out he will have to decide whether Britain restarts its training of troops inside Ukraine. Having had 14 years in opposition, Labour has certainly had time to consider at length how to usefully spend its time in government. The dangers that the new government faces are many, but there are opportunities too, that could allow it to cement its rule over Britain for at least a decade.

After the landslide comes the hard work - can Labour revive Britain?

Keir Starmer's election celebrations are cut short as he immediately seeks to implement reforms with his new Labour government