Britain’s problems are going to take a long time to fix, with the public being warned by the Labour Prime Minister to prepare for “painful” times ahead.
In his first major speech since his election last month, Keir Starmer drew a bleak picture of a country ravaged by riots and scarred by economic inertia.
Britain's problems were such, he suggested, that it would take at least a decade to fix, laying the foundation for unpalatable choices in the near term to win the next election in five years.
Worse before better
By painting the Conservative’s 14 years in power as “a decade of decline” and highlighting an apparent £22 billion black hole in government finances, Mr Starmer is attempting to embed in the public’s mind the chaos of Tory rule.
That claim was made more emblematic in the flowered surroundings of Downing Street’s Rose Garden which became notorious for hosting lockdown parties under Boris Johnson’s rule.
That demonstrated “how far we have fallen” as a country with the fault lines shown not only by the financial shortfalls, he said, but also by the “societal black hole” exposed by the anti-immigration riots across Britain earlier this month. “Things are worse than we ever imagined,” he said.
He did not shy away from telling the British public that their lives are about to be challenged in the coming months as “things are going to get worse before they get better”.
Taxpayers will have to prepare themselves for a “painful” budget at the end of October when it’s expected that taxes will rise and benefits cut.
The new Labour government looks like it is taking a leaf out of former Conservative chancellor George Osborne’s playbook when commencing government in 2010 with a host of painful public spending cuts that heralded the austerity era.
Labour’s plan appears to be similar in making the difficult decisions in its first years before reaping the benefits in the run-up to the next election.
“We will not shy away from unpopular decisions if they are right for the country in the long term,” Mr Starmer said.
Budget pains
Preparing the country for a probable budget of tax rises, public spending cuts and benefits curtailment to balance the budget, he argued that “we have no other choice, given the situation that we’re in”.
“Those with the broadest shoulders should bear the heavier burden,” he warned adding that was “why we’re cracking down on non-doms”, referring to Britons whose homes for tax purposes are outside the UK.
Referencing the economic hardships already suffered after the Covid-19 lockdowns and ensuing economic woe, he pleaded for a “big ask” of the country “to accept short-term pain for long-term good”.
Mr Starmer also defended the decision to give generous pay increases to doctors and rail unions to end their strikes, stating that the economy would not grow if people could not get to work or see a doctor
Riots and prisons
Most commentators agree that Mr Starmer showed strong leadership in tackling the unrest that swept the UK this month by rapidly moving to arrest and jail rioters.
That swift action, alongside big counter-racism demonstrations, largely curtailed the disturbances but Mr Starmer was again keen to emphasise his predecessor Rishi Sunak’s government’s failings that had allowed prisons to become almost full.
Mr Starmer spoke of his “shock” of sitting in the daily Cobra national emergency meetings with a list of where there were prison places across the country “trying to work out with how we deal with the disorder” with the deterrence of rapid imprisonments.
He added that the riots, which saw asylum seeker hotels set on fire, “didn’t happen in a vacuum” and had exposed “a deeply unhealthy society”.
Britain built to last
With his words sparsely offering optimism, Mr Starmer strove to end with some uplifting language.
While change would not happen “overnight” and issues had to be tackled at their “root” once the reforms had been made, Britain would be a country “built to last”.
The government would focus on growing the economy, which would be helped by fixing Britain’s beleaguered transport system and National Health Service.
However, there is some criticism that Mr Starmer did not highlight Britain’s apparent dire state and the likelihood of greater taxation during the general election campaign.
Although he has a substantial majority, MPs will now have to explain to their constituents why things have to be bad before they become good.
