Editorial: Small campaign pledges risk inhibiting Labour’s ability, if elected, to improve people’s lives
Sir Keir Starmer delivers a campaign speech to supporters, members and local people in Lancing, West Sussex, 27 May 2024.Sir Keir Starmer delivers a campaign speech to supporters, members and local people in Lancing, West Sussex, 27 May 2024., if he achieved his goal for the UK to attain the highest sustained growth in the G7, he would readopt plans to scrap university tuition fees.
Tax and spending promises lie at the heart of modern election campaigns in Britain. The experience of being put on the back foot over economic issues has led Labour to an almost crippling cautiousness. Sir Keir has sought to close down opportunities for the Tories to label his plans as “tax bombshells”. There are differences between Labour and the Tories. But they are small.
Labour’s proposals raise about £10bn, a sum dwarfed by the size of the public sector and its problems. Rishi Sunak’s government missed its recruitment target for teachers by more thanto spend £1.1bn to pay health staff extra for out-of-hours working to deliver the promised 40,000 weekly operations, scans or appointments. That is welcome, but there are 7m GP
Spending is restrained in part because Labour is targeting a balanced current budget. Even if the economy turns out as forecast, this leaves a Labour government having to either deliver spending cuts to. But Sir Keir is trying to distance himself from the politics of redistribution. Instead, voters are left with austerity economics, as they are with Labour’s retention of the Conservative fiscal rule that debt as a share of GDP has to be falling by the fifth year of a Treasury forecast.
Sir Keir should think bigger, because the fixes that the country needs exceed what he has offered so far. Reducing theto make resources available for socially useful spending must be the aim of Labour’s tax policy. Bolder policies can capture voters’ imaginations, if they are clearly communicated and chime with the public’s priorities. The risk is that they become hostages to fortune.
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