The Times They Are A-Changin’: So Long, Farewell….. 

 

 

“I put up with all the scenes
And this is one scene that’s goin’ to be played my way” 

 

Listening to Kier Stamer’s resignation speech, I felt an overwhelming sense of sadness and disappointment. But, at the same time, there was a realisation of dignity, a decent person, perhaps in the wrong place at the wrong time 

 

Timing is everything, and, unfortunately, he wasn’t a person for today’s instant media world, or the vacuous nastiness that populism has made politics.   

In “They Think It’s All Over….”, I commented on how the Starmer administration had been hijacked by Blairites painting the government into a corner with their self-imposed fiscal rules. 

In my opinion, appointing Morgan McSweeney as a his Chief of Staff doomed his administration before it started. Not only did it see the reintroduction of the twice-disgraced Peter Mandelson, it saw change superseded by continuity. 

Starmer was, in-effect their stool pigeon, malleable enough to change from what he campaigned for in the leadership race to just another Blairite. 

‘he wasn’t a person for today’s instant media world, or the vacuous nastiness that populism has made politics’

 

The Blairite cabal are closet-Tories. The 13-yrs of New Labour was little more than a continuation of the previous 17-yrs of Thatcherism. 

As Thacher herself said, when asked what she considered her greatest achievement: “Tony Blair and New Labour. We forced our opponents to change their minds.” 

As a result, since 1979 our economic policy has been based on neoliberalism. Its greatest success has been to drive inequality. 

As the country becomes progressively more unequal, the uber rich are using their wealth to influence politics. Newly enabled right-wing populist such as Reform and Restore receive vast sums of money from a small number of right-wing supporters to do their political bidding, underpinned by building-up resentment and distrust in the traditional parties. 

Not only has our politics been consumed by right-wing dogma, so has our media. Led by the Mail and Telegraph, the Starmer government couldn’t do anything right. They were, and still are, totally oblivious, to the fact that the Tories had been in-power from 2010 to 2024, and, as a result our problems were Labours inheritance rather than their fault.  

Nevertheless, the right-wing press and their insatiable desire for a right-wing government, bothers little with the truth. Their coverage is relentless, every article was a knife in the back of the government, all designed to undermine, question and break confidence in the administration.  

 

‘every article was a knife in the back of the government, all designed to undermine, question and break confidence in the administration’

 

Even when he was right, he wrong in their eyes. 

As with Biden’s “Inflation Reduction Act”, Starmer’s energy and climate policies were key to overcoming the cost of living crisis. Unfortunately, the media and opposition parties made dismantling this agenda one of their top priorities, second only to immigration, in their pitch to voters. 

If it does anything, this opposition to climate change highlights the short-sighted stupidity of right-wing populists. 

Charlatans, such as Farage are supposedly disciples of Thatcher and Thatcherism, but they clearly forget that she warned the UN of the climate crisis in 1988; David Cameron in 2006 urged voters to “vote blue, go green”; Theresa May enshrined in law the requirement to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050; Boris Johnson championed the Cop26 UN climate summit in Glasgow in 2021; even Rishi Sunak only tried a partial rollback of green policies as a last desperate throw before calling an election. 

Today, the climate crisis is engulfed in the so-called woke agenda and culture wars. Talk-is-cheap politicians on the right, including Kemi Badenoch the Tory leader, have weaponised climate change. Badenoch has vowed to abandon net zero, boost drilling in the North Sea, scrap the windfall tax on oil and gas profits, and repeal the 2008 Climate Change Act. 

 

‘the climate crisis is engulfed in the so-called woke agenda and culture wars’

 

Reform are taking it a stage further, openly denying climate science and threatening to withdraw from the 2015 Paris agreement. 

The paucity of Starmer’s advisers was laid bare, with his former advisor Morgan McSweeney (Yes, him again), concerned this mission would lead Labour voters to defect to Reform. 

For all his supposed political nous, McSweeney appears deaf; polls by More in Common for the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit, on the eve of the local elections in May, found that two-thirds of the public still want the country to meet the net zero target. 

On a personal level, Starmer appeared dull, lacking charisma, appearing as a stunned rabbit in the headlights, who was  overwhelmed by the role, unable to prioritise, offering only muddled solutions. 

 

‘Reform offer little in the way of solutions to the cost-of-living crisis and grinding inequality, but they do offer the electorate someone to blame’ 

 

 

Personality aside, this perception wasn’t helped by his promise of change, which, when moulded by his advisers, became continuity. Not surprisingly, the electorate, after 45-yrs of Tory and quasi-Tory misgovernment, totally lost patience. 

Added to this impatience, was Labour’s collective failure to see and then understand the rise of Reform post their 2024 election victory. Reforms rise from 14% of the vote in that election, to C.35% by mid-2025, was driven by disappointment and disillusionment. 

Labour’s continuity and poor media relations left them prey to a media savvy, right-wing party stoking grievance and division. 

Reform offer little in the way of solutions to the cost-of-living crisis and grinding inequality, but they do offer the electorate someone to blame. 

 

‘This column christened you “Mr Brightisde” when you became PM, that was too optimistic, but it wishes you every success and happiness in the future’

 

Immigrants became the focus; “the answer is immigration, what’s the question”? Voters lost faith in the tried and tested and turned to the almost anarchic simplicity of Reform’s populism. 

Starmer was unable to convince voters that real change was coming, and didn’t help himself when, in a speech, he said: “Things will get worse before we get better.” 

If Burnham does only one thing, he needs to change peoples “everything is broken”, “nothing ever changes” perception and imbue politics with optimism. 

So long Sir Kier. This column christened you “Mr Brightisde” when you became PM, that was too optimistic, but it wishes you every success and happiness in the future. 

 

 

“And reading Maynard Keynes 

And I’m thinking about home and all that that means 

And a place in the winter for dignity”  

 

 

 

So, the time has come. We say farewell to yet another PM.

Where does Starmer rank?

He wasn’t as slippery as Johnson, nor as delusional as Truss.

His decisions didn’t create an unnecessary austerity post-GFC, or lead us into the needlessly suicidal Brexit referendum.

He has more-in-common with spreadsheet Rishi, a dull administrator, or the hapless May, trying to deal with unruly Brexiters determined to unseat her.

As with Messrs Sunak and May, he was the wrong person in the wrong job at the wrong time.

He was sunk by his bad choice of advisers, who turned him into a Blairite continuity PM.

He was sunk by the Tory’s insatiable lust to be in government, which was Jeremy Hunt’s unfunded, post-dated NIC cuts, and shadow-chancellor Reeves falling for the “we wont put up taxes” schtick.

He was sunk by a vindictive right-wing press with a very clear agenda.

With temperatures expected to hit 38c, how can anyone deny climate change? They are either bigoted or stupid.

Finally, he was sunk by his own lack of convictions. He had a massive majority—a do what you want majority, a majority for change.

Oh well…..

Lyrically, we start with “Say hello, wave goodbye” by Soft Cell, and play-out with “Dignity” by Deacon Blue.

Enjoy! Philip.

 

@coldwarsteve

 

Philip Gilbert is a city-based corporate financier, and former investment banker.

Philip is a great believer in meritocracy, and in the belief that if you want something enough you can make it happen. These beliefs were formed in his formative years, of the late 1970s and 80s

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