In the run up to the Labour Party Conference, the Westminster village has got itself ever more excited by Taylor Swift and Arsenal tickets, the size of Sue Gray’s salary, and whose been paying for the PM’s wife’s clothing.
None of these things matters. It will be four or five years until the next election and, while the British media enjoys nothing more than ‘taking the shine’ off the next new thing, the fundamentals of British politics have not yet changed.
Stories such as frockgate fill a media vacuum, but they only matter if they betray a more fundamental truth about the subject and so undermine voters’ trust. Liz Truss’ mini-budget mattered because it undermined the Conservatives’ core claim of economic competence. Betraying their pledge on tuition fees mattered for the Lib Dems because their central claim was to be more honest than other politicians. In contrast, the public expect the Conservatives to break their promises and the Lib Dems economic policies not to stack up and don’t care, because it’s not why they were voting for them in the first place.
Labour has been elected because they are not the Conservatives. None of the summer’s Westminster gossip changes that. But now they are in Government they will begin to be judged not for whom they aren’t, but what they do.
In the run up to the election, voters saw a Government clearly too distracted by corruption, infighting and self-interest to do anything about the major issues facing the country. The Conservatives just stopped doing anything, and the promises to do things in the future simple weren’t credible.
Labour comes in with a mandate for change and it is against this that it will be judged. Starting with housing, Labour needs the world to begin to look and feel different: it will need to start building new homes, doctors to be more accessible, prices to feel more affordable.
On the things that matter they have made a good start: inflation is back under control -although Labour had nothing to do with that – but it has settled the headline industrial disputes – whether of doctors or train drivers – and that will be noticed. But it will take longer for new homes to go up while restructuring the NHS will take years not months.
Which takes us what Labour needs to do at its Liverpool Conference.
So far, Labour’s messaging has focussed on how bad their inheritance has been and how hard that makes it to deliver change. It seems a good strategy to manage expectations (and I suspect most voters will have some sympathy), but it is the opposite of what Labour was elected to do so patience will soon run dry.
The challenge for Starmer is to explain not what cannot be achieved, but what progress has been made and how more will be achieved over the year ahead.
If winter fuel payments are to be ended, then it better mean some real resources for the NHS and education in this year’s budget.
If we are to “reset the relationship” with Europe, then it better come with some early noticeable benefits, whether it’s young people being able to study abroad again, shorter queues at airports or less bureaucracy for businesses.
If Starmer is to blame this summer’s riots and prisoner releases on the Conservatives, then he better make them the last.
So, the challenge in Liverpool is, first, to point to real and significant differences that affect everyone lives, that are being made already or that can be achieved over the next year. Then he needs some clear targets and – rather than gloom and pessimism about what can’t be done – optimism and excitement about what he and has party intends to achieve.
He needs to turn up the volume and show his ambition, or voters may in time be persuaded to focus on the minutiae – and then it might just begin to matter.
