Wakefield is No Litmus Test for Government
For Starmer to realise his ‘Attlee moment’, he must begin to tell a story of transition.
Early last year, as the vaccine rollout ramped up and we dared to consider a future after the pandemic, Keir Starmer appeared ready to capitalise on the public mood. He spoke of reckoning with the “spirit of the Second World War”, of realising that the country faced another “Attlee moment”, and claimed the public would soon be presented with a ‘fork in the road’.
A year on, as the next general election veers closer and the people of Wakefield and Tiverton roundly denounce Boris Johnson’s administration, we remain where we were, waiting for Starmer to articulate this alternative course.
Though Starmer soon deserted his analogy, the comparison rings particularly true with our learnings from the pandemic. Not since the Second World War had events so viscerally emphasised the gravity of public sector resilience. Much like the War, it taught us much about the mechanics of our state: specifically, about what strengthens or weakens its capacity to respond to our largest, collective challenges. Though this theory would seem to resonate with the national experience, as well as popular opinion, it does not appear to be what Starmer meaningfully implied in February last year.
While not unusual for party leaders to invoke historical successes, as Tony Blair recognised, nostalgia politics can have limited utility. By their nature, progressive politicians usually refer to the past as a narrative to define themselves against, not with. That is not to say Starmer would be unwise to revisit Attlee. By turning back to Attlee’s victory in 1945, rather than calling on ‘the spirit of the Second World War’, he could assay what made Attlee’s policies so compelling. To lead an unprecedented electoral swing, in the way Attlee did, Labour’s offering today must reflect on an understanding of what it means to learn from, rather than merely exit, national crisis.
Like Starmer, having won the leadership on the lines of his sensible, unifying pluralism, Attlee was routinely harangued by his Party’s more passionate ideologues. Attlee was, as Starmer is, lacking in the magnetism and popular appeal that radiates from their Conservative counterparts. Yet, in spite of these foibles, the most powerful similarity between Starmer and Attlee’s tenures comes in the form of opportunity.
As we canter toward the next general election, Boris Johnson finds himself increasingly mirroring his personal hero, Churchill. Ever an imperious orator and a proven vote winner, for the first time Johnson is struggling to make a convincing case for his Government. In the most absorbing episode of his long career performing escapology, he leans on Churchill’s ill-fated post-war lingua franca, attempting to divert his audience’s attention simply with the direction “let me get on with the job”.
In the narrative vacuum left by Johnson’s wavering administration, Starmer should begin carving a story arc in Attlee’s method: attentively responding to the last few years. Invariably, then, he must pitch a programme premised on more than his own rectitude. It would be remiss not to recall that Starmer’s leadership began with unifying ideas and a set of bold commitments to members. With the same vigour, he must begin to find the answers the Tories lack for our biggest problems, such as soaring inflation and the cost of living, strikes over public sector pay and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Come the next general election, Starmer won’t have the liberties afforded to him in the Wakefield by-election: the Shadow Cabinet can’t camp out in each key constituency, nor will every Conservative candidate be replacing a disgraced predecessor. A year and a half after Starmer spoke of embodying Attlee, Johnson as if to emulate Churchill, appears destined to offer his political opponent a chance to do just this; if the time for Starmer to seize his ‘moment’ is not soon, it may never come to pass.
George Pugh-Thorogood
DGA Interel