12- PAGESECTION
‘ The Tories need to take the current troubles seriously and not relyo n vote ramnesia in four years’ time.’ Bill Carmichael OPINION –
WHAT A difference a few months make. We had become so accustomed to Jeremy Corbyn’s inept Commons performances, including at Prime Minister’s Question Time, that I think we’d forgotten what happens when the government is properly held to account.
That has certainly changed with the arrival of the new Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer, who although he is despised by the left of his party, is a serious politician who at least bothers to prepare properly.
This week Sir Keir skewered Boris Johnson – not for the first time – over the numerous U- turns performed by the Government over recent weeks.
The Labour leader put the total at 12 policy reverses, but actually while the exchanges were taking place in the Commons, there was another one, this time over plans to ease local lockdowns in Trafford and Bolton – so I think we can call it a baker’s dozen.
Sir Keir shrewdly pointed out that such policy somersaults were causing unease even among Boris’s own Conservative backbenchers.
Accusing the Government of “serial incompetence” and lurching from crisis to crisis, the Leader of the Opposition claimed the Prime Minister was “making it up as he went along”.
These barbs no doubt stung, and there is some justification in Starmer’s attack, but in truth the Government can mount a reasonable defence.
No- one has experienced a pandemic like the current one before and at times the scientific and medical advice has changed rapidly. When this happens, for example when the World Health Organisation changed its advice on pupils wearing face masks in school corridors last week, the only sensible option is for the government to change its policy too.
The same people who accuse the Government of numerous U- turns would no doubt criticise the Prime Minister for mule- like obstinacy if he stuck rigidly to his plans while ignoring the changing advice from the medical experts. And let us not forget that the exam fiasco in England was repeated in very similar ways in Labour- run Wales and SNP- run Scotland, so the notion that the system would have worked perfectly under Labour is fanciful to say the least.
But despite all of this there is little doubt that Starmer is an effective parliamentary operator who can score points against the Prime Minister.
His famed “forensic” approach uses a carefully targeted stiletto to jab home his points, while Boris fires off a blunderbuss in all directions in reply. Does any of this matter? Prime Minister’s Questions is a piece of gladiatorial political theatre which frequently ends up as a shouting match. Little in the way of serious political debate or policy formulation takes place. The Conservatives have a whopping majority and the scheduled date of the next General Election is not until May 2024 – almost four years away. Who knows what the political landscape will look like then, but one thing is for sure – many of the daily obsessions of today’s political commentariat will be long forgotten.
And impressive though Starmer has been since becoming Labour leader, don’t forget he was also the architect of the party’s disastrously confusing Brexit policy that saw the working classes leaving in droves, the crumbling of the famed “Red Wall” and the left’s worst election result since 1935.
Starmer is certainly a big improvement on Corbyn, but his record at a senior level in politics is patchy at best and he is a long way from being some kind of political genius.
But I feel that his small victories at the set piece events, such this week’s Commons exchanges, do matter to a small degree, if only because they serve to boost the morale of MPs and the party supporters in the country. And there is always the danger for the Conservatives that the drip, drip, drip of stories of government incompetence will begin to stick in the memories of ordinary voters, many of whom take little notice of the detail of politics and just look for the big picture of what the parties represent at election time.
For that reason the Conservatives need to take the current troubles seriously and not rely on voter amnesia in four years’ time. As for Johnson, is it too fanciful to speculate that he hasn’t fully recovered from the coronavirus that almost killed him earlier this year? For a normally ebullient and witty character he has looked tired and worn down. Either way he and his ministers need to up their game to halt Sir Keir’s clear momentum.