The Tories mustn’t allow Labour to turn this crisis into an opportunity
Keir Starmer will attack the Conservatives’ handling of coronavirus, but they can exploit his liberalism
It is an iron law of politics that there is nobody as wise as an opposition politician speaking with hindsight. So bad was Jeremy Corbyn that he rarely displayed any wisdom even after the event but, as the Conservatives understand, Sir Keir Starmer is a very different proposition.
Some commentators have compared the timing of Starmer’s election as Labour leader with when Iain Duncan Smith became Tory leader two days after 9/11. And it is true that the coronavirus lockdown meant Starmer was forced to record a slightly wooden video message, rather than make a passionate acceptance speech in front of his supporters. But while the pandemic limits the media space for Starmer to talk policy, it presents him with an opportunity to attack the Government on competence.
This is exactly what Starmer will do. Despite promising not to “oppose for the sake of opposing”, he has already condemned the Government’s “serious mistakes”. He has attacked confusion about the testing strategy and its slow delivery. He has criticised the blockages in getting protective equipment to medics on the front line.
And by calling for the establishment of vaccination centres across the country and a clear exit plan from the lockdown, Starmer has shown he understands another iron law of opposition politics. He is demanding things he knows ministers plan to do before they are capable of doing them. Later he will claim he was ahead of the curve in trying to flatten the curve.
Call this cynical, but it is what opposition parties always do. In 2005, David Cameron and George Osborne overturned years of Tory economic policy by supporting Labour’s spending plans. Yet immediately after the financial crash, they turned on a sixpence, attacking Gordon Brown for running a structural deficit and condemning Labour’s debt crisis. This was how the Tories won office in 2010.
Opposition parties always seek to retain the freedom to criticise even during moments of national crisis, because they know that governments that lose their reputation for competence can soon fall. But this does not mean they always do. Tony Blair took Britain into Iraq in 2003, yet won a landslide in 2005. Last year, Starmer’s attempt to play on the Government’s Brexit difficulties blew up in his face, when millions of voters decided that the cause of political deadlock was not government incompetence but the Brexitwreckers, including Starmer himself.
We do not yet know whether coronavirus will damage the Government’s reputation for competence. Much will depend on the ability of ministers to deliver the objectives they have set for themselves, such as the aim to test 100,000 people a day by the end of April. Much will depend on the Government’s ability to communicate its strategy and changes in policy. But most importantly, ministers will be judged by whether Britain suffers a higher death rate than other liberal democracies.
This is a question to which we cannot yet know the answer, but we do know that coronavirus will change our lives and our politics forever. There will be demands for greater national resilience and state capacity to protect us from danger. There will be an expectation that businesses and governments should shorten stretched supply chains. There will be a wider understanding that the NHS and other vital services should be well funded.
We are likely to feel a sense of solidarity as we emerge from a crisis we have all – rich and poor, black and white, man and woman – experienced together. And this will have important ramifications for the strategic choices Boris Johnson and Starmer need to make for their parties.
Boris won his landslide by moving to the Left on the economy and to the Right on cultural issues. He promised to end austerity, spend on services and invest in the regions, while saying he would control immigration, cut crime and get Brexit done. That was enough to reassure traditional working-class Labour voters in the Midlands and North of England and Wales that he could be trusted with their economic interests and would, in particular, do what they wanted on Brexit.
Starmer will do what he can to neutralise the cultural dividing line that Boris used to smash through the Red Wall of Labour seats. He has apologised for his party’s antisemitism scandal, made nods towards small business owners and referred conspicuously to the interests of England, which has long been a blind spot for Labour. Instead, he has shown he wants to campaign on economic issues: taxing the rich – promising a “reckoning” – and increasing benefits and public sector pay.
The Tories cannot afford to give Starmer what he wants. When the worst of the coronavirus crisis passes, the Government will need to focus on getting economic growth – and employment, pay and tax receipts – back up and running. But it will be vital for Boris to continue with his pre-crisis agenda of levelling-up the regions and investing in services. This will be the right thing to do in its own terms – bringing opportunity and prosperity to the whole country – but it will also have the political benefit of forcing Labour further to the Left on the economy, adopting unpopular and unrealistic policies such as a Universal Basic Income.
Standing their ground on economic policy will allow the Tories to assert themselves on cultural issues and create useful dividing lines with Starmer’s Labour. Boris can make sure Brexit is the real deal, while Starmer will want us to follow European laws over which we have no say. Boris can reform human rights laws, while Starmer, the former human rights barrister, will want political decisions to be made not in Parliament but by lawyers and judges.
And this, for all Starmer’s competence and intelligence, and superior political skills compared to his predecessor, is his Achilles’ heel. If you were a Labour candidate seeking to regain a Red Wall seat, you would be more than happy talking about nationalising the railways and increasing public sector pay. But asked for the three scariest words in the English language, you would almost certainly say: “human rights lawyer”. And that, to his fingertips, is what Sir Keir Starmer will always be.