Starmer sets out his stall
Corbynism is out… but what exactly is in? Matthew Partridge reports
In a move that will “anger” many Labour MPs and activists, Keir Starmer has confirmed he will U-turn on his promise to abolish university tuition fees, say Nick Gutteridge and Daniel Martin in The Telegraph. The policy was the second of his ten “key pledges” when he ran for the Labour leadership three years ago, yet now he admits he is “likely to move on from that commitment” as it is “now unaffordable”. He has instead pledged to find a “fairer solution” for funding university.
A turning point for Labour
Completely abolishing tuition fees would have cost £9bn and it would have benefited only half of school-leavers, says Rachel Cunliffe in The New Statesman. But that consideration doesn’t make the status quo any less unfair. The high interest rates on student loans, combined with the relatively low repayment threshold, has created an “underclass of additional taxpayers” that sees half its income “eaten up before they even see it”. Those wealthy enough to repay their loans quickly, or old enough not to have got caught in the trap, get off lightly.
It’s clear that Labour policy more generally is at a “turning point”, with tuition fees just one of a series of moves that will “draw a complete line under the economic arguments of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership”, says Tamara Cohen on Sky News. Pledges to nationalise public utilities, increase income tax for the top 5% of earners and abolish universal credit have all been dumped. Starmer clearly hopes that, with a general election looming, these changes “will hammer home the message that fiscal discipline is now key”, and pre-empt Conservative claims that Labour is planning a “tax bombshell”. But given that Labour is maintaining a “significant lead in the polls”, it could be argued that Starmer is being “too cautious”.
The party of houses
Moving Labour to the centre ground by abandoning past spending promises makes sense given that the public finances are “obviously in a weaker state” than before Covid, says John Rentoul in The Independent. The trouble is that, while ditching many of his earlier policies, he hasn’t come up with any concrete alternatives, leaving it uncertain whether his plans “to hug the Tory government as closely as possible on tax and spending” are genuine or merely temporary political posturing. Starmer “shouldn’t be surprised that neither his party nor the electorate are persuaded that he knows what he is doing”.
Trying to appear “ambitious” at the same time as steering clear of Conservative plays on fears of Labour “profligacy” may seem impossible, says Patrick Maguire in The Times. Housing, however, is one area where Labour can be both radical and responsible. Tory backbenchers have forced Rishi Sunak to back down on mandatory housebuilding targets for councils. In contrast, Labour is moving towards a “carrot and stick” approach, with councils forced to work together to come up with plans for development, but also given “cash and infrastructure as the prize for new housing”. Combined with a loosening of the green belt and the building of a “generation of new towns”, this could boost the economy and crown Labour as “the party of home ownership”.