Keir Starmer could not have been starker in his warnings of the dark clouds hanging over the UK, both societally and economically, in the fist keynote speech he has made since becoming Prime Minister.
Speaking from the Downing Street Rose Garden on Tuesday, the Labour leader reminded us of the £22 billion financial black hole, the shortage of prison places, the pandemic parties, and the absolute shit show that he has inherited from the Conservatives.
It is difficult to argue with any of this. But is anyone listening?
Like most people, I am gobsmacked at the nerve of ex-Tory ministers, Conservative Party leadership contenders, and indeed the former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak (ably aided and abetted by a very Labour hostile print media), for having the audacity to attack Labour on ‘tax lies and cronyism’.
Nevertheless, I’m not convinced that the George Osborne playbook of 2010 is going to be as effective for Labour in 2024.
An old political adage is that you campaign in poetry and govern in prose. Well, Labour campaigned in prose – and as a result, it is unlikely that the doom and gloom messaging is going to carry the government through too many more months.
The electorate demonstrated that they knew how inept, incompetent, and corrupt the Tories were. The Conservatives received their lowest vote share in decades and were virtually wiped out.
Therefore, Starmer, Rachel Reeves & co do not need to keep reminding us of their challenging inheritance. We have been hearing the austerity, things can only get worse message for the bulk of 14 long years now.
I am not suggesting a return to Boris ‘Boosterism’, or worse ‘Truss-enomics’. But Labour does have to offer people hope, optimism, and a vision for the future, alongside the pragmatic narrative that it has been articulating through the election campaign, and beyond.
Perhaps those Labour staffers who attended last weeks Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Chicago will report back to HQ that there is merit in presenting energy, joy, and ambition.
The UK is a more politically cynical place than the US, but there were still lessons from the DNC that I hope Labour learns and adopts for its forthcoming conference in Liverpool next month.
The first Labour government in fourteen years should be hosting a party, not a wake. Yes, remind people of your lousy inheritance. But as importantly, let us know what we have to look forward to once the inevitable painful decisions have taken place.
The country needs a vision. The suspicion is, Labour doesn’t have one. Liverpool provides the government with a platform to prove that that is not true.
