A week of chaos, cowardice and negligence

Labour has managed to pack so much failure into a single week that it becomes hard to remember all the details.

Photo by Nong on Unsplash

This might be the week where I lost all sense of hope. That’s it now. There’s a point where optimism becomes irrational and by Christ we’ve surely reached it.

This was such an utter balls-up of a week, such a comprehensive demonstration of ineptitude and nihilism, that it almost feels as if it was designed to eradicate any lingering sense of positivity from the human mind. From Monday to Friday, Labour offered a comprehensive argument for its own obsolescence.

One after another, we were treated to a parade of unforced errors and unresolved dysfunctions. All of the standard structural flaws of the British political system were present, combined with a few new ones tailored specifically to the pathologies of this administration. It is unconscionable to have to sit here and watch them make a series of telegraphed mistakes, over and over again, without them showing the slightest recognition that they are repeatedly making them.

We are still early enough in the electoral cycle for them to take firm action and reap the benefits by the time of the next election. But that time is running out and they don’t have the bravery. They don’t have the character. They don’t have the vision. What a crushing disappointment they are, really. What a bitter, bitter disappointment.

This week has felt so long that it is hard to believe that we began on Sunday night with the resignation of the BBC leadership. That in itself is a bad sign - so much political material that time itself seems to stretch, making five days feel like ten.

These sorts of weeks were common under the Conservatives. A scandal would break on Monday, followed by a balls-up on Tuesday, a resignation Wednesday and a policy U-turn on Thursday. There would be so much content. It felt like politics was crammed full of big era-defining events. But then at the end of the week when you tried to take stock you’d find that it was all actually quite hard to remember. And that was because none of it meant anything. None of it had improved the life of voters one iota. It was all empty calories, angry screaming hysterical bollocks without substance or meaning.

The BBC story, which I covered here, ostensibly has little to do with the government. On the face of it, it is about the corporation and the US president. But in fact it concerns a societal coordination effort by the previous Conservative government and Labour’s inability to neutralise it.

Over at the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), the Conservatives installed Kishwer Falkner, who has duly pursued a reactionary agenda against equality and human rights, undermining the very basis upon which the commission operates. At the BBC, they installed Robbie Gibb, who has attempted to undermine the institution from within. His current effort to do so involves taking what is ultimately an Unherd article by Michael Prescott - a meat-and-potato collection of half-arsed conservative talking points - and trying to use it to inflict permanent damage on the BBC. This is the planned March Through The Institutions: the populist right effort to install reactionaries in key positions in the constitutional and civic landscape.

Gibb should be gone. It is an affront that he is still in position. But culture secretary Lisa Nandy says events have not reached the legal threshold required to do that. There’s no sense of the kind of firm, concerted action we need to save the institution from the saboteur placed inside it. Just go ahead and keep on playing by the rules, while your opponents do whatever they damn well like - breaking the law, lying, speaking without the slightest sense of accuracy or meaning.

Nor is there any sign of a wider government approach to neutralising the Conservative attack against the institutions. It could, right now, present plans to remove government control over director general appointments and the BBC board. It could present plans to remove government control over the appointment of the chair of the EHRC and other bodies. It could act - not to install left-wing figures in place of right-wing ones, but to block a future reactionary government from trying to break these institutions. To make them truly independent. Instead it shuffles mindlessly on: doing nothing to change the system, and accepting the biased output that comes from previous reactionary appointments. A zombie government, with zombie policies, following a zombie agenda.

On a day-to-day basis, this is the easier path to take. Don’t rock the boat, don’t make any big moves, don’t upset the right–wing press. But in the long term, it is ruinous. It fails to protect national institutions and regulators. It leaves them utterly exposed to a future Reform government. And it perpetuates the existence of an information eco-system which is weaponised against the Labour party. Cowardice today. Punishment tomorrow.

On late Tuesday afternoon, before we could even catch our breath from the BBC story, a briefing war broke out, with a series of coordinated and targeted attacks against health secretary Wes Streeting. It appeared to be some sort of preemptive strike against him ahead of a possible leadership challenge.

I wrote a couple weeks back that now was not the time to get rid of Keir Starmer as leader, because it would be seen as a chaotic and solipsistic bit of family butchery just months after securing a large majority. This move completely inverted that analysis. It took Starmer’s greatest asset, his argument for stability, and set it alight. He effectively started a leadership challenge against himself.

This was done in the most inept way possible, by taking on the government’s most personable performer just before he was due to go on the radio for a morning round of interviews on the NHS. Streeting then duly did what he does best, which is to talk with good humour and a relaxed manner, demonstrating just how much better he was at this part of the job than the prime minister.

This was a crucial moment for the government. It was now on the brink, about to fall into the pit. In one possible future, it can still go back to governing seriously and trying to improve people’s lives. In another it can topple into the narcissistic hole of leadership ambitions and backroom political knife fights which the Tories loved so much.

Again: there was a clear avenue to improving the situation. Sack Morgan McSweeney, the chief of staff whose tenure has seen the party squander an immense majority. Take control of the Downing Street operation. And yet again, the government balked. Starmer refused to sack McSweeney last night. Indeed, apart from criticising the briefing and insisting it was nothing to do with him, he has refused to take any action at all.

On the basis of elementary logic, this is an indefensible position. It means Starmer must be one of two things: cynical enough to sanction the briefing and lie about it, or weak enough to have a briefing take place without his knowledge and do nothing about it. It’s not clear which is worse.

The decision to keep McSweeney in place doubles down on Starmer’s loyalty to a figure who has presided over a catastrophic 12 months of ineptitude and failed strategy. You are currently being outpolled by the Green party. You are staring at the face of electoral annihilation. And yet even now, you still stick with the man responsible for it. Cowardice today and punishment tomorrow.

Late last night we were treated to the third and final part of this shitty triptych. Briefings to the Financial Times revealed that the government had bottled its plan to raise income tax. Less than two weeks after a speech in which the chancellor had carefully laid the groundwork for the tax rises, they were now going to row back.

When Reeves gave her speech, there was a small moment of hope. Perhaps now, finally, we might have an honest conversation about taxation. Perhaps we could even go a step further - dare to dream - and engage in deeper systematic reform, addressing all these monstrous elements which make it so opaque and irrational. The insanity of three-decade-old council tax valuations, for instance, the economic self-harm of stamp duty, the regressive wave-structure of the marginal rate, the lunatic bingo-hall logic of VAT exemptions. Perhaps Reeves could find a sudden moment of bravery by virtue of how few options her predicament left her. Were there risks? Yes. Vast risks. But if you had to take the pain anyway, why not rationalise the system and make it encourage growth? Set it up to help boost the economy and maximise revenue.

Once again, the same short-term versus long-term dynamic presented itself. Reeves’ tax rises would anger the public and trigger a press backlash. They would be savaged by the Greens on the left and Reform on the right. But they would reassure the bond market, get its foot off our neck, bring back stability and provide a sound footing for economic policy. They offered the opportunity to repair public services so that voters in 2029, who would have hopefully gotten over the anger, could see the improvements in their lives in time for their next trip to the polling station. Perhaps now, finally, Labour was prepared to do what was right, even if it was risky.

Hope springs eternal, but it is increasingly forlorn. The government U-turned last night. There seem to be two reasons for that. First, the obvious attack coming their way for breaking a manifesto pledge, exacerbated by the briefing row. Second, more optimistic forecasts, which allow the sums to add up without rise. But in truly winning fashion, their briefing made no mention of this second element last night, allowing for it to be pumped out this morning by Bloomberg after an initial bond market spasm.

The U-turn means any dream of broader tax system reform is obviously dead. Actually, it’s worse than that. The tax system will inevitably get worse, as Reeves pursues a plethora of little tax rises in a desperate bid to make the sums add up. It is precisely these sorts of fiddly little details which make the system so obtuse. And every one of them carries a political risk. It was one of these little fiddly changes that triggered the pasty tax debacle in 2012. And now she is going to let a million of those flowers bloom. What fun.

Of more immediate concern is the fact that Reeves has just undermined her own argument for why she should remain in charge. Until now, she could credibly claim that the market demands she remains as chancellor. When she was shown crying in the Chamber a few months ago, markets reacted badly because they calculated that it indicated her coming departure. In the time since then, she has cemented that reaction as part of her reputation.

Raising taxes showed the government was serious about its fiscal rules. It reassured the markets, which reduced the cost of borrowing, which gave the government room to breathe. And now what? An entirely predictable series of events. Having walked the nation up the hill of tax rises and then walked it all the way down again, the bond market reacted at opening in predictable horror, before partially settling down when reports emerged of a better economic forecast. But the minute-by-minute reaction notwithstanding, that relationship is in a much more fraught place now than it was before the decision.

Once again, the same process. Cowardice today. Punishment tomorrow.

What’s happening here? Why is it quite so bad?

Many of the problems are the same as they are for any administration. I outlined these issues in How Westminster Works and Why It Doesn’t. Our system selects for MPs and ministers without the right skills or experience to do the job effectively. Parliamentary procedure prevents it improving legislation. No.10 favours claustrophobic power-play antics over sensible teamwork. The Treasury produces piss-poor policy because it is not forced to undergo any meaningful kind of scrutiny.

But every administration brings their own unique defects to the pre-existing systemic flaws. In the case of the previous Tory administrations it was the millennialist quasi-religious project of Brexit, combined with Robespierrian tribalist murder-psychosis and the basic underlying fact that they were a bunch of cunts. In the case of this Labour administration, the problems are different.

There are at least three main culprits. First, there is a lack of vision. The government cannot articulate what it wants to do. Does it want to protect the British institutional infrastructure from bad-faith government intrusion? It doesn’t know, because it hasn’t really thought about it.

Second, there is a lack of focus. Even where a vision exists, the government has not set up the organisational mechanisms to deliver on it, amid the daily firefight of Westminster. So every day is lost to some new initiative, some new distraction, some new row, and meaningful work rarely gets done. The kinds of things we have seen this week - pre-emptive briefing attacks, U-turns on policies before they’ve even been announced - these are symptomatic of an administration that is lost in the mania of Westminster life.

Third, and most important, there is a lack of bravery. Of courage. In case after case, we see the government fail to do the right thing, because they think it’ll hurt them. Do they know that people like Gibbs should obviously not be on the BBC board? Yes. Do they know that the tax system is a mess and needs fixing? Absolutely. Do they know that tax rises now can improve public services later? Almost certainly. But they are too afraid to take the hit.

They keep on doing the supposedly popular thing, or the easiest thing, and are then surprised to find that it does not lead to a popular outcome. But there is a reason for that: the decision has unpopular effects.

They must choose between an unpopular decision and an unpopular effect. You see this across the policy landscape. Universities need more money. Will that be popular? No, so they don’t do it. What is the effect? Universities collapsing. Will that be popular? No, it’ll be even less popular than the policy which would have prevented it.

Immigrants boost economic growth. Is immigration popular? No, so they try to reduce it. What is the effect? Reduced growth. Will that be popular? No, it’ll be even less popular than the policy which would have prevented it.

This is the cowardice trap. And Labour is currently caught in it.

As I was writing this, there was a brief moment of hope. On BlueSky, Guardian media journalist Michael Savage reported that Nandy would “look again at political appointments to the BBC’s board as part of charter renewal discussions” in the wake of the Gibb row.

And there it is again. Oh, a ray of sunshine on the face, a trace of warmth. Days after it should have been announced, sure, well after it would have made an impact, and without any guarantees - but a tiny molecule of hope nonetheless. Poor men don’t turn down pennies.

And yet each time, it is harder to have trust in that feeling. I felt a little hope after the mini-reshuffle reorientating the Downing Street operation and making Darren Jones chief secretary to the prime minister. It plainly did not go far enough. I felt a little hope after Starmer’s conference speech and his newfound commitment to calling out racism. We’ve heard little of that since then. After a while, hope becomes less a question of optimism and more a question of self-delusion.

This must be the nadir. It cannot be allowed to go on like this.

This administration has to show that proper government works. It has to refute populism. Instead, it is fuelling it through incompetence, cowardice and shot-sightedness. The continuation of performance at this level would constitute a historic act of negligence and irresponsibility.

Odds and sods

I can’t be arsed to link to the podcast version of this newsletter every week, but safe to say that you can listen to it at the top of the page, or on the Striking 13 Substack page or on Spotify.

My piece for the i newspaper this week was on the briefings and losing faith with Starmer. The headline goes further than I would like, but that’s not my area - plus I spent years editing a website, so I know what it involves trying to attract eyeballs through headlines. It works as a kind of despairing two-parter with my piece on here a couple weeks back on why he should stay.

My position is obviously shifting. A few people online complain about that, of course. I will write at the New Year about what I got wrong about Starmer - clearly I did get him wrong and was far more optimistic about him than I should have been. But needless to say I don’t apologise at all for shifting on the leadership question, basically day by day, on the basis of the evidence in front of me. Anyone who I admire shifts too, when there is reason to do so. And by God there’s plenty of that.

The Society of Editors Media Awards were this week, where I was nominated for commentator of the year. I didn’t win, but imagine my genuine burst-out-screaming delight when Yasmin Alibhai-Brown did. She’s my colleague at the i newspaper, but more important she is a long-standing voice for the rights and dignity of refugees and immigrants. I used to read her avidly when I was in university. I have to pinch myself now that I’m sat next to her at an awards table. She is, as you might imagine, majestic. Basically a national treasure.

Our second episode in the three part history of the Labour party came out on Wednesday, packing in Attlee through to Wilson. It’s a story of triumph, why that triumph took place, and what allowed it to happen. Strangely, it did not involve perpetually taking the easiest path available to you in a perpetual defensive crouch. Honestly, telling the story of a war-ravaged government with no money which managed to create the NHS does not exactly make you more sympathetic to the people currently in charge. Available wherever you get your podcasts or you can just watch it below.

Last night’s Origin Story Live was a delight. Our audience is so preposterously warm and funny and engaged. Dorian and I both loved it. The recording will be out soon, first for Patreons then for general listeners. We just need to get rid of all the libel. So it might take a while, actually. Tickets for the next live show will be out soon.

Thanks for all the responses to the Ask Me Anything email. I was oddly flattered to have so many people send questions. And more than that, I was struck by how thoughtful and delightfully fucking weird they were. Thank you. I’ll read every one and start putting out irregular answer-articles soon.

This week I rewatched Interstellar, basically because it seems to have sneaked up on me as a cult movie. I watched it when it came out and had mixed feelings. I like Christopher Nolan a lot, even though he is faintly reactionary, sexist and cold-hearted. But I also remember feeling disappointed at the ending, which seemed pat and sentimental and logically nonsensical.

In the intervening years, something has happened. The film has become a thing. One of my favourite comics podcasts (iFanboy) recently did an episode about their favourite films and it was mentioned there in extremely gushing terms. I chatted to a friend of mine recently, whose views I really admire, and they despised it with such passion and commitment that I was slightly taken aback. A recent Guardian article named it the internet’s favourite film. What the fuck is going on. I decided to find out.

It turns out my opinion remained largely the same as when I first saw it. The film is monumental: The effects, the scale, the diligence of the storytelling, the use of the physics, and most importantly in terms of its themes. It is an immense project. No matter what criticism there might be of Nolan, I really admire his ambition and the singularity of his vision. The link between relativity and the feeling of subjective time, particularly through parenthood, is ingenuous. He is basically applying Einstein’s physics to the phrase ‘don’t they grow up so fast’. The scenes of Matthew McConaughey weeping through the sudden lifecycle of his children have lost none of their power despite being subject to a million memes. They destroyed me.

However, I have a pet peeve. It’s about what Hollywood always does when confronted with extreme physics. It seems to lack confidence in the audience’s interest in it on a basic scientific or intellectual level. I suspect they think it’s too abstract. So then, in a bid to relate it to some kind of universal emotional experience, it always seems to retreat back to the concept of the relationship between the parent and the child.

It happens here (SPOILERS). What does McConaughey find at the bottom of a black hole? His love for his child. I am simplifying here - it’s technically the trigger for a planetary rescue plan through a time loop, but it is framed around the idea that love can transcend physics.

What happens when Jodie Foster finally experiences contact in Contact. She finds her father’s face. What happens when Amy Adams gets to the end of Arrival? We learn about her relationship with her child.

To be clear, I love all these films - particularly Arrival, which is a bona-fide masterpiece. The turn towards parenthood is properly foreshadowed in Interstellar. The film makes clear from the very beginning that it is about a father’s relationship with his daughter told through the medium of sci-fi. But there is something faintly depressing, I think, about our lack of confidence in the audience’s sense of awe at space, that feeling that they need something grounded and personal for it to have meaning. So as much as it’s an immense work, it is, in the end, a bit deflating.

Right, that’s me done. I’m off to the Thought Bubble comic festival for the most important weekend of the year. If you’re there, come say hi.

Now fuck off.