Séamas O'Reilly: Keir Starmer's austerity is a betrayal of ordinary British people's hopes (2024)

At times it was more like a stern talking-to from a disappointed schoolmaster.

There is a deep, sociopathic grimness in hearing a Labour party leader advocating for what amounts to a swingeing campaign of budget cuts and welfare crackdowns, all while chuckling at protesters as they’re removed for drawing attention to the UK’s continuing military links with Israel.

On that latter point, Starmer beamed from his podium drawing applause from the party faithful as he quipped “this guy’s obviously got a pass from the 2019 conference”.

This, in reference to that hilariously gauche period when Labour — and human rights lawyer and then-shadow Brexit secretary Keir Starmer — stood against things like genocide.

Given all we have come to know about Starmer’s easy wit, this zinger was clearly pre-written, doubtless drafted after an activist shouted down chancellor Rachel Reeves on the same issue the previous day.

She, too, proudly declared that Labour had changed and was “no longer a party of protest”.

Even as a well-worn follower of political soundbites, I was struck by this statement’s incoherence.

The idea that Labour is no longer a party of protest held a certain ghoulish logic when Labour was in opposition. As a ruling party, however, it lacks even rudimentary grammatical sense. Of course they’re not a party of protest. They’re the party of government.

One worries if Labour has been out of Downing St for so long, they’ve misunderstood that the very act of taking power makes them responsible for how said power is wielded.

HARD CHOICES... OR SOFT TARGETS?

This is a government that was elected amid a surge of enthusiasm, albeit enthusiasm directed entirely toward removing the comically venal and inept Tories who had ruled for the previous 14 years.

And yet an Opinium poll released on Tuesday reports that Keir Starmer has suffered a 45-point drop in popularity in the 80 days since the election was won.

He is now less popular than Tory leader Rishi Sunak, who not even three months ago oversaw the decimation of the Conservative vote to near-atomic levels, hounded out of government on a tidal wave of incompetence and sleaze.

Despite repeated warnings that the honeymoon period for any incoming Labour government would be brief, Starmer pressed ahead with a raft of unpopular legislation, cutting winter fuel allowances for pensioners, and signposting “tough” cuts to welfare and benefits in the upcoming budget.

These are, Labour insists, hard choices for hard times, a necessary chore to fix the £22bn gap in public funds left by the outgoing Conservative government.

Constantly framing these as “tough choices” was clearly intended to make Labour seem serious and sober — the sensible adults returning to the room — but its primary effect has been to highlight the choices not made.

One is left, after all, with the intractable conclusion that cutting fuel payments for the elderly was a decidedly easy choice, compared to raising taxes on the mega-wealthy donors who have helped pave their party’s path to power.

It doesn’t help that this is all happening while Starmer and his inner circle are mired in controversies relating to taking money and gifts from said donors.

Education secretary Bridget Phillipson took £14,000 from Labour peer Waheed Alli, to pay for a lavish birthday party populated by lobbyists and journalists.

The same donor gifted Keir Starmer suits totalling £16,200 and glasses worth £2.5k, and the prime minister has also been gifted £20,000 for accomodation for his son to study his GCSES, and a box to watch Arsenal play their home matches.

Both were also gifted the most precious real-world commodity on Earth — tickets to see Taylor Swift.

DEPRESSING AND IMMORAL

One can, of course, plead perspective. The entire cost of the freebies granted to Starmer and other key ministers is significantly less than the money given to Boris Johnson just to remodel the 10 Downing Street flat he lived in for three years.

It is also correct that the right wing press of the UK is not exactly a plain dealer when it comes to such scandals, considering the cover they offered to egregious sleaze throughout the last 14 years of Tory rule — including, but not limited to, sweetheart deals for covid contracts, offered to party donors to the tune of billions of pounds from the public purse.

But the notion that the public should not be aggrieved is inane.

For the past week, defenders of Starmer have repeatedly said that his £160,000 a year salary is insufficient for him to dress well on the world stage, a risible statement considering his government has spent the summer telling those on benefits that £300 a month is more than enough to live on, and that this number is about to be reduced.

The street I live on here in London has two weekly food banks. Both open at 10am, but I see people lined up there from 8am, displaying enough anxiety about getting a good spot in line that I’m forced to presume there’s not always enough to go around.

There are about 2,800 such centres in the UK and 22% of the population live in absolute poverty. Some 4.2m of them are children. Meanwhile, the richest 1% of Britons hold as much wealth as the bottom 70% combined.

In 2022, the Financial Times reported that the poorest Irish household has a standard of living 63% higher than their British counterparts.

The fact is, the UK’s haves and have-nots are drifting further and further apart.

To gaze upon the state of the nation and decide that the people who’ve been having it too good for too long are the parents skipping meals and the pensioners wearing their coats indoors, is not just bad politics. It’s a depressing and immoral betrayal of the modicum of hope some of us felt just three months ago.

It can’t help feeling like the same wolf in new clothes — it’s just now we know how much they cost, and who bought them.