Alan SimpsonBritain entered 2025 amidst a welter of blizzards, flooding and abandoned public celebrations across the country. And we hadn’t even begun to talk about the government.
It seems remarkable that Labour should enter the New Year already having nosedived in the opinion polls. But we need to separate the self-inflicted injuries from the structural problems the government faces.
Everyone knew Labour’s 2024 landslide election victory was mainly a rejection of the corruption and greed after 14 years of self-serving Tory governance. Everyone knew that years of repair would have to follow. Everyone knew that a more inclusive politics would take time.
What no one expected was that Labour would begin by making so many stupid choices; picking the wrong fights, on the wrong issues, with precisely those parts of society whose support it desperately needs.
Climate and community, inclusion and equity were the touchstones Labour should have stuck to.
But the regressive nature of Treasury orthodoxies quickly torpedoed such priorities. There were no ‘Brownie points’ in looking like a pale replica of all that preceded you. The big question now is how does Labour turn this around?
One thing is certain. The answers will not be found in image manipulation. As Jonathan Freedland neatly parodied it in the Guardian –
“(Labour’s) latest relaunch-that-wasn’t-a-relaunch saw Starmer unveil six new ‘milestones’, accompanied by three ‘foundations’, which followed six ‘first steps’, which were the successor to Labour’s ‘five missions”.
All this lacked was the promise of ‘a partridge in a pear tree’ and Labour’s Christmas celebrations would have been complete. But as the decorations begin to come down tougher choices have to be made. These must be about substance, not style.
I may not be Kier Starmer’s greatest fan, but if his Cabinet colleagues are already questioning whether he will/should lead Labour into the next election, they too risk falling into the same trap. Labour’s problems are rooted as much in the lobbyists as in the Leadership. A clear out of the courtiers is what Labour needs.
Democracy under threat
Centrist governments around the world face rejection by their electorates as neoliberalism fails to deliver the public prosperity it never promised. The far-Right shift the focus away from their own greed by blaming everything on immigrants and outsiders. For large sections of society – those simply struggling to survive – this is an easy peg to hang your prejudices on. But if the Left don’t come up with a more credible, post-neoliberal politics of inclusion this is where the voters will go.
Each step of this journey must focus around a new ‘people and planet’ politics. Labour’s easiest policy choices then become more obvious.
Retain the £2 bus travel policy and pay for it by reinstating fuel-duty tax increases (as part of UK carbon reduction policies). Link this to plans for free public transport initiatives in towns and cities.
Reinstate the Winter Fuel payments as a universal pensioner entitlement. Then lower the threshold for the top rate of tax so the wealthiest aren’t unnecessary beneficiaries.
Redefine energy as a ‘not for profit’ service (as Denmark has done) rather than a competitive market.
Close the ‘debt loophole’ used by privatised utilities; then require their borrowing to go via a Climate Bank (or government bonds) at non-extortionate rates of interest.
Make dividend and bonus payments conditional on meeting defined standards in all public service sectors
End all fossil fuel subsidies (direct and indirect) and divert them into energy saving programmes.
Remove the 2-child benefit cap.
Require all public sector contracts to go to companies paying full taxation on UK earnings.
Limit the entitlement to hold public office (and public honours) to those paying full UK taxation on UK assets and earnings.
Tax-favour cooperative ownership and democratic accountability.
Introduce carbon border taxation, using it to remove/reduce taxes on recycling and repair.
Promote the growth of non-fossil fuel transport, following Norway in restricting public sector ‘vehicle loan schemes’ to non-fossil fuel options and, in the private sector, removing all tax support from non-EV vehicles purchases.
These could have been Labour’s ‘Twelve Days of Christmas’; policies. They would have infuriated the Right but lifted the spirits of those looking for a different approach to redistribution and change.
A new Enlightenment, a different politics
Any of these ideas would have sparked a lively political debate. But none address the bigger pictures. Manchester’s streets would still have been flooded. Farmers’ fields would have been inaccessible, travel disrupted by gale force winds. And through it all the British government would still not have condemned the Palestinian genocide nor ended all military collusion with the process.
Labour would still be asking Regulators how best to promote ‘growth’, not how to avoid climate breakdown. Government attention would still focus on disrupting the gangs behind refugee smuggling, rather than confronting the root causes (of famine and war) that lie behind forced migrations. The West may turn its back on the notion of reparations but it is stupid to be blindsided by the human disruption that collapsing societies and ecosystems will bring.
In 1945, the world faced a similar need for seismic change. The War had ended, the League of Nations had passed its ‘sell by’ date and the world stage was empty. Global leadership filled the moment, creating the United Nations with its satellite programmes for development, education, health and democratic inclusion.
If Keynes had had his way, the UN would have had its own bank (the World Bank/IMF) with a duty to redistribute wealth not saddle the poor with unaffordable debt. For all that failed, there were at least global leaders willing to address global stability and inclusion. Today, the stage is again empty. But the situation is worse.
The world is off track for the 1.5°C global warming target. Corporate fiefdoms block all the paths climate scientists would have us follow, if human ecosystems are to survive.
Political leaders may not all be corporate stooges but most lack the vision (or courage) to say that neoliberal plundering has to end if humanity is to survive.
Prosperity or growth?
The choices will soon become stark.
Governments will have to collaborate to weather the climate roller-coaster they have unleashed. Food security and eco-system repair will have to displace the o b s e s s i o n w i t h f r e e – t r a d e d e a l s .
‘Redistribution’ and ‘inclusion’ must shove ‘consumption’ and ‘growth’ metrics out of the window.
To do so Leaders only have to rediscover the embedded wisdom in Tim Jackson’s ‘Prosperity Without Growth’ and the Club of Rome’s earlier ‘Limits to Growth’ (or Jorgen Randers’ ‘30-Year Update’ to it). They could take a lead from UN Secretary-General António Guterres and any number of IPCC reports.
Analysis and answers are not the problem. In energy, food security, transport, education, health and housing there are dozens of ways of delivering an economics of consuming less and putting back more. Only the obsession with neoliberalism blocks the path. This may not bother the uber-rich but, for the rest of us, the existential challenge of our lifetime is to find the Leaders who will deliver systems change, not outdated slogans.
It cannot be left to the Christmas Fairy.
Alan Simpson
Jan 2025
