Britain’s new government has just reached the point where things get serious. The king’s speech marks the ceremonial divide between Labour’s pinch-yourself fortnight following the 4 July election landslide and the start of the hard slog of delivery, by which Keir Starmer’s government will actually be judged next time. It’s the end of the overture and the start of the drama itself, the part that really matters.
Before the election there was a debate among those around Starmer about how to approach the opening days in government. Some wanted the new government to immediately trigger a blizzard of activity to show that Labour was active and a contrast to the Conservatives. In this view, promoted in particular by Starmer’s chief of staff, Sue Gray, the first 100 days were crucial, an agenda-driven opportunity to reignite confidence in government.
Others counselled the overriding importance of a longer-term and more politically strategic approach. In this view, held by Tony Blair among others, the campaign to be re-elected in 2028-29 had to start from the moment Starmer became PM. Despite Labour’s majority, its future re-election chances would hinge on palpable success in a few priority policy areas – the economy, the NHS and migration among them. Everything should be focused on these.
In the event, Labour has adopted a mix of both approaches. There has been no shortage of ministerial activity, and some impressive photo opportunities for Starmer. There will be more of the same tomorrow, when Starmer hosts a meeting of European leaders at Blenheim. The king’s speech, containing about 40 pieces of legislation or draft legislation, promises a hive of activity in parliament too.
Nevertheless the king’s speech also tells us, unmistakably, that the centre of gravity of the Starmer project is not performative but strategic. “Nothing less than national renewal,” Starmer promised MPs yesterday. Yet full though the programme is – it was the longest king’s speech for many years – it offers few early dividends for voters. The promised employment rights bill is a rare exception. Much of the rest is heavily end-loaded.
Starmer is trying to balance impatience for change with the inevitability that the process will be gradual. National renewal, maybe, but it would be “determined, patient and calm”, he told MPs. It was “time to take the brakes off”, he said. But the government engine will still take some time to reach cruising speed. The new bills would “lay the foundations of real change,” he added. But the change itself will have to come later. On some very big issues – the NHS, defence, child poverty and public spending – ministers are already playing for time by setting up reviews. The king’s speech can in some ways be seen as a calculated plea to be given even more space.
Labour is betting its reputation on its ability to get some big social democratic things done – building more houses, boosting clean energy security, making work more secure and giving more power to local leaders – but it is hoping that the bet will be allowed to mature over the long and not the short term. This is now the central calculation in everything that Starmer says and does. It explains, among other things, the doggedly unflashy language of the king’s speech, full of emphasis on things like service, security and opportunity. But the government’s statement yesterday highlighting the “Ten things to know” about the king’s speech goes even further.
The list includes things that sound big, and are big: kickstarting economic growth, getting Britain building, making work pay, handing power from Whitehall to communities, strengthening our borders and improving the NHS. All of these are desirable. All have significant public support. But each is also a large and aspirational project, and each remains slogan led, even now. Above all, each will take many months, and in some cases many years, to deliver.
Economic growth, first on the list, and starkly described by Starmer as “the only way our country can progress”, is the prime embodiment of this determinedly long-term approach. In spite of some modestly encouraging growth and inflation figures this week, and a small upward revision of the IMF’s growth forecast for the UK, the growth goal remains a distant one. Achieve it, on the other hand, and much of the rest of the programme begins to be achievable too.
Growth is not, however, a goal that can be achieved by legislation, however often Starmer describes it as the centrepiece of the government’s policy. Nor is it one that, after long years of often deliberately inflicted damage, the increasingly dilapidated institutions and instruments of the British state are particularly well equipped to reach. As Sam Freedman’s new book Failed State describes so dismayingly well, both Blair and Gordon Brown were still able to operate on the basis that if they pulled a lever in Whitehall, things would sometimes happen. Starmer knows that this is no longer true.
Playing the long governmental game in modern politics is admirable as well as audacious. It is certainly easier when you have a 174-seat majority and the Conservative party is turned inward and fractious, and thus lacks credibility as an alternative government. But there are risks, too, and modern politics provides very little effective insulation against them.
Sixty years ago, when Harold Wilson formed his first Labour government, his new ministers were just as thrilled and excited to find themselves in office as Starmer’s have so obviously been this summer. Back in 1964, however, the ministerial bubble quickly closed around them. “Life seems to go on in a curious, new, abstracted, unbroken continuity, cutting one off from normal human relations,” wrote the housing minister, Richard Crossman, in his diary. The danger of becoming disconnected from normal life is still very real, as Boris Johnson’s ministers found out to their cost.
But it still leaves a government exposed to the disruptions of what the Conservative prime minister Harold Macmillan famously called “events, dear boy”. This week the Welsh Labour leader, Vaughan Gething, was forced to quit after a row about a campaign donation and blowback against his sacking of a colleague. The former Scottish National party leader Humza Yousaf suffered a similar fate a few months ago. And Johnson discovered in 2022 that such things can happen in UK-wide politics too.
Events can quickly overturn apparently secure leaders, especially, perhaps, in the social media age. It doesn’t take much to lose control of the online story, as Gething discovered. The Tories are already gunning for Ed Miliband after the energy secretary’s fast start on onshore wind and solar power. Starmer has a huge majority, a full programme of new laws and a large amount of continuing goodwill. But his exemplary patience, calm and determination to play the long game do not mean he is exempt from the laws of politics.
