Starmer deserves a better class of critic

There are many legitimate reasons to attack the government. We have decided to focus on all the other ones instead.

Photo by Emrah Kara on Unsplash

Here's what Labour has done over the last week. It's very unfashionable to mention this sort of thing, of course. Apparently all anyone wants to read about are taylor Swift concert tickets. But just on the off chance that someone maintains an interest in what's actually happening, let's have a quick recap.

On Tuesday, legislation removing the 92 hereditary peers from the House of Lords passed its first major Commons debate. They and their gloomy ancestors have sat there for hundreds of years, unaffected by any government except that of Cromwell. They've survived the Parliament Act showdown with the Commons in 1911 and the 1999 reforms of Tony Blair, which stripped them down to the existing rump. Now they're finally on their way out. A small but persistent constitutional embarrassment, finally addressed.

On Thursday the government announced £1 billion new investment from Barclays and Lloyds, secured using financial guarantees from the National Wealth Fund, to improve the energy efficiency of social housing. This is part of Labour's core economic agenda, using state intervention to reduce the cost of capital and de-risk private sector lending for progressive causes. In this case, it will be used to retrofit social housing with low carbon heating and insulation. It will reduce bills, health risks and fuel poverty, while contributing towards net zero.

On the same day, the government outlined plans to finally regulate buy-now-pay-later companies - something the Conservatives promised to do and then did nothing to achieve. Now firms like Klarna and Clearpay will have to carry out affordability checks on borrowers and provide clear information about loan agreements. 

And then, in the background, are the various reports about a growing government consensus on HS2 replacement. The previous government cancelled the northern leg in a moment of spite and crazed self-interest, leaving a very expensive stump where an advanced modern rail line was going to be. Now reports keep emerging of a new plan - perhaps completing the line to Crewe, or, more likely, building a non-high speed line part-funded by the private sector. Clearly, something is building behind the scenes.

Overall, that's not a bad week. And yet hardly anyone will have heard a thing about this stuff. Instead, the main political story was about Taylor Swift. That in itself is incomprehensible. No-one can explain what has supposedly been done wrong. In order for it to make any sort of sense, you have to countenance the frankly deranged idea that Keir Starmer entered into a conspiracy in which she would get enhanced security in exchange for free tickets to her gig.

And yet this is fairly indicative of the media approach to Starmer’s government. The assessment of his first 100 days has ranged from saying that it's "it's been a disappointing start" to the preposterous view that "this is on the verge of being the least adept [government]". 

What the hell is happening here? How is this type of hysterical gibberish being given prominence over actual political news? Why have journalists become so unhinged in their approach? 

The coverage is due to three reasons. First, the press has a natural right-wing bias in this country, due to its funding model. It always has done. It always will. There’s no point crying about it, you just have to deal with it. Second, Starmer has made several unforced errors, particularly in internal management over the MacSweeney-Gray shitshow. And third, most important, he has no base of support in the country.

This is the key reason for the media coverage. Journalists get the sense that no-one much likes Starmer and therefore feel authorised to go for him. The polling is pretty dire. Go online and you can see the frustration - from right and left, populist and mainstream, Leavers and Remainers.

I really don't want to turn into the Starmer Appreciation Society. I like to trade in anger, hatred and disdain. These are my natural human feelings. They are my emotional base camp. It feels weird to try and be fair about people, to react to politicians with anything other than sneering condescension. 

Nor have I been any less let down by Starmer than anyone else. When he became leader he promised to protect or restore free movement. That right there is the single most important policy for me: the freedom of people to cross borders without state interference, for immigrants to live and work with dignity without some grey-skinned little bureaucrat getting in their way. In the end, Starmer backtracked. Now, he seems to prevaricate on even a youth mobility scheme, let alone single market membership. 

On most issues, my views differ from those of the government. I want a more left-wing economic position, a more libertarian public health position, a more Remain European position, and a far more radical series of constitutional and electoral reforms than they are willing to countenance. 

But I have an important advantage. I've never wanted to love a politician. I evaluate them entirely negatively - not by wondering what wonderful things they will achieve, but by embracing all the terrible things they might prevent. I am prepared to accept all sorts of compromises with my own values as long as the government is better than the alternative. Voting is not an expression of my soul. It is not a demonstration of my identity. It is my attempt to secure marginal improvements on what came before, regardless of all the various disappointments it will necessarily entail. 

If there is a central principle that this government is all about, it is about this chief distinction in politics - between those who want pragmatism and sobriety and those who want a great zero-sum battle in the sky.

I sometimes wonder what happened on that night in June 2016, when the results of the election started to come in. I don't know what people saw that evening - a political mistake, a betrayal of our European personality, a victory for sovereignty, the triumph of Faragism. I just remember having a sense of the world toppling, of firm things becoming unstable. Of sudden, dangerous chaos. The barbarians at the gate.

Those barbarians are tearing down the battlements all over the world. By this time next month, Donald Trump may well be president again. They run governments across Europe, from Italy to Hungary. They surge in places we thought impervious to their charm, like Germany. They act as kingmakers in countries that defined themselves by opposition to them, like France.

They bring nothing but hate and victimhood and the broken wreckage of nations they have no interest in running and could not do so if they did.

Look at the state of this one, eight years after that vote. 

The Tories shanked the country. They did not even do this entirely through error, but, in the final moments, as they entered the advanced stages of madness, through vindictiveness and brazen irresponsibility. They knew the national insurance tax cuts were unaffordable, but they did them anyway. Why? Because Labour would either oppose them and harm itself in the election, or support them and debilitate itself in government. Labour had too little bravery to choose the former option and now must accept the latter. But that is a far lesser crime than having forced the question in the first place. 

Every area you look at, it's the same. From rail to asylum processing to the criminal justice system. They fucking shanked it. And now, when the doctor comes to clean up the wound, it feels as though everyone is gathered round to complain that he hasn't done his tie up.

For all his faults, Starmer intends to fix the problems he has been presented with. He positions himself explicitly as the anti-populist, as someone who is prepared to engage with the world as it is rather than as we want it to be. His premiership, humdrum as it may seem, is really a battle between truth and fiction, between people who will provide us with real concrete policies for our problems or those who tell us that everything will be alright if we just hate this group over here, if we'll just fear these people over there. It may all seem boring and managerial, but it is in fact a gladiator pit in which we discover what politics is: a commitment to reality or a dissolution into myth.

This administration is not about the fortune of Starmer or the Labour party, I really couldn't care less about either of those things. It's not even about net-zero, or housing, or growth. It's about what kind of country we are. Whether we go back to rational, sober politics, or get lost forever in the hateful hallucinatory nightmare of the populists.

The gates are being rebuilt to withstand another barbarian assault. And those of us who believe in those gates and what they symbolise should be prepared to support the people charged with constructing them.

It’s dreadful having to be fair-minded. But when the dangers are so perilous and the coverage so frivolous, it really does feel like the only option.

Odds and Sods I

The new Origin Story books are finally out - we launched yesterday. Angels flew down from the heavens. A song burst out from the clouds. Everyone started silently weeping, although they couldn’t work out why. Several people had their virginity magically restored. It was a date that will go down in the annals of publishing.

Speaking of which, the publisher sent me a few free copies, so let's give them away in exchange for cynical financial support. I will send out a free signed copy of the book, with a message of your choice, to the next TEN people who sign up for a paid subscription to the newsletter. 

I know how this goes. Pretty much everyone will ask me to write the word 'cunt'. And I accept that this is the result of the various life choices I have made. I know I am ultimately responsible. And yes, obviously I will do it.

In the meantime, here's a little chat Dorian and I did on that Waterstones just put up on their YouTube channel. I really rather like it, it's a good summary of what we do.

The first episode of our new season, on Russell Brand, was also released this week - it got the most listens in the first 24-hours of any episode we’ve done, and thank god for that because it was a bastard to research. You can listen to it here or watch a short clip here.

And if you fancy listening to my regular slot on ABC's Late Night Live in Australia, you can hear it here. 

Odds and sods II

While We Watched is a cracking documentary following NDTV's Ravish Kumar as he tries to maintain his journalistic integrity against the deterioration of India under Narendra Modi's nationalist regime. It's not perfect - I could have done with some more context into the stories they're talking about in the newsroom - but it captures several important things I'd never seen in this light before. I was really struck by how utterly exhausted he was, trying to maintain his ethical standards in the face of remorseless government attacks, vitriolic nationalist journalists and dwindling ratings. A testament to bravery and journalistic commitment, even as people tire of it.

My Gavin and Stacey re-watch continues, but I now have a problem. I am watching it in the gym. Nearly every episode will make me burst out laughing at least once and cry at least once. Also, many of them make me do both of those things at the same time. Have you ever seen a man laugh and cry at the same time on a treadmill at 7am? No. Because I'm telling you now it looks weird as fuck, or at least I presume it does given the way that people stared at me. I may need to reconsider my whole approach to this project. Or perhaps embrace it as my gym identity. 

See you next week.