‘Cheer up! We’re in government!’

I’m reporting to you today from the parallel universe that came into being in July 2024.

The new Labour government was immediately handed a test by the far right of rioting and violence. Starmer’s robust response showed that it’s possible for a centre left party to act tough against violent crime and racism.

Immediate successes

Other immediate successes last summer included a string of low cost green initiatives that had an almost immediate impact on decreasing the fuel poverty divide. A long denied pay rise for Britain’s beleaguered public service workers. A seriously overdue rise in the minimum wage.

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Opposition to Labour from outside the party has been relentless and angry, but incoherent. The Tories are still nowhere to be seen. For all its acres of positive press Reform do not seem to be running away with this inevitable victory we’re all being asked to accept, plus they have their own battles to deal with.

Meanwhile from the left there’s been an almost daily onslaught, but for all the leadership’s problems with Israel and Palestine so far most people aren’t buying into the social media narrative that the biggest war criminal isn’t Trump or Netanyahu but Keir Starmer.

The Greens continue to be the repository for disgruntled left wingers although we have yet to see any Green Party initiative come close to matching the highly successful policies of Ed Miliband, Sadiq Khan and Tracy Brabin.

And no one who spent any time in Labour between 2016 and 2021 is remotely surprised to learn that your party is only Your Party if you’re an old white man.

The polls look awful in Wales but the fact that people are being told the choice is now between two types of nativism feels like a strong starting point for explaining why collectivism is always the better choice. See also Scotland.

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This year the far right promised to test Labour with a summer of violence. There were isolated incidents, and a show of strength last week by convicted fraudster Tommy Robinson bankrolled by South African billionaire Elon Musk, but most of the mob got the message from last summer’s arrests and stayed at home.

The toxic issue of migration and asylum has been Labour’s biggest test. The UK is not alone in struggling with this issue. . A well funded right has purchased electoral successes in America, Argentina and across many democratic European countries. Their cosy relationship with enemy of democracy Russia has done much to undermine our attempts to stop the invasion of Ukraine, the clearest example of aggressive empire building in the 21st century.

While Starmer has successfully steered Trump from full-throated public support for Putin, Farage continues to see off his enemies to the right (yes even he has them), and is still courted by the right wing press as the next PM. What remains of the left wing media seems to sigh and shrug its shoulders and also accept this 2029 prediction as set in stone.

Without wishing to bang on about the inherited mess, the big task here was to deal with the terrible backlog on asylum cases that began with David Cameron and mushroomed under the various vagabonds and chancers who took his Prime Ministerial place. That Labour has made a start to handling this poisonous issue is never going to win praise in this area. That’s the world we live in.

What’s the problem then? No one denies that a number of bad decisions and dodgy appointments have been made. But governments always make bad decisions, self-inflicted or otherwise.

Imposter syndrome

The answer I think is all to do with confidence. If I could use two words to describe Labour’s approach to power so far they would be “impostor syndrome.”

This is the idea that a feeling of inadequacy persists despite success. There’s no shame to it. It shows humanity and humility. Tom Hanks and Michelle Obama have both talked about having it.

But when people see you looking unconfident in public it makes them less confident in you.

Whatever else you can say about Trump, Truss, Farage and Johnson, you know not one of them ever lost a moment’s sleep wondering if they might not be the right person for the job.

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Is it possible we can at least give the impression that being in government is something we’re desperate to do? As Bob Monkhouse once said “it’s all about sincerity. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.”

Celebrate our wins

While we’re at it, can we please be a little more celebratory about our wins? You never hear about London’s steady climb up the ranks of greenest city since Sadiq Khan took over, yet in my own Borough the Lib Dem councillors are outrageously claiming credit for his policies.

I have no more idea than you about how to improve our standing in the polls. All I know is if we continue to mooch around despondently, allowing our local wards to atrophy as we sleepwalk towards the already written off elections next May, we might as well pack in now and hand over the keys to Nigel.

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