Martin Kettle's Blog, page 11

Starmer can’t dodge the Europe question for ever. In office, the economy will answer it for him | Martin Kettle

Closer alignment between a Labour government and the EU is a certainty. But the divisive binary choices of 2016 are ancient history

“Who do you think will lead the Labour government’s revolt on Europe?” asked my walking companion, steeped in politics, as we battled a cold morning headwind on a Chiltern hillside this week, the hedgerows around us suddenly in full leaf again and the chalkland remarkably dry after that pitiless early April rain, before he added: “And when will it come?”

These are both good questions. But they are hard to answer in a fierce wind and going uphill. Back in the dry, I have mulled them more carefully. The revolt on which my companion and I speculated would be a revolt to push Keir Starmer to go further on Europe than he says he is willing to go. The answer is that the pivotal factor may not be geopolitical- and security-related, as some may assume amid the increasingly dire conflict with Russia in Ukraine. More probably, it would be the state of the economy over which Labour finds itself presiding as Starmer’s government reaches its midterm point.

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Let’s stop talking about ‘great’ Britain – and rebrand ourselves as a different sort of country | Martin Kettle

Any plans for ‘national renewal’ after the Tories must focus on freeing the UK from its vice of wallowing in guilt or glory

Addressing the Labour conference in October, Keir Starmer promised to lead a decade of national renewal. After Covid, Brexit and the cost of living squeeze, few will dispute the need, although people may reasonably debate what renewal implies or where the priorities should lie. This week, though, has offered a warning that renewal, desirable though it may be in principle, will also have many enemies.

“The essential first step is acknowledging you have a problem,” writes the former Foreign Office chief Simon McDonald in his recent book on the future of British foreign policy. My Observer colleague Will Hutton writes: “It is time to stop talking and thinking of Britain as a rich and broadly fair country,” in his own call for a wider national remaking. “We cannot help the world respond to the list of global problems if we ourselves are on it,” echoes the ex-cabinet secretary Mark Sedwill in a pamphlet about the Foreign Office published this week.

Martin Kettle is a Guardian columnist

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Sunak’s Conservatives face years of oblivion. Changing leader will solve nothing | Martin Kettle

Two historians argued in the 1990s that nine conditions defined the likelihood of Tory defeat. Almost all of them hold today

Incredible though it may seem, it is increasingly likely that Rishi Sunak’s Conservative leadership will be challenged in June. To many, the idea that choosing a fifth Tory prime minister in as many years might be the solution to internal party turmoil, or that ditching Sunak a few months before a general election would reanimate the electorate, will feel utterly delusional. To a significant group of Conservative MPs and activists, however, it is a primrose path that beckons irresistibly.

These critics never supported Sunak in the first place. They can’t forgive him for not having Boris Johnson’s post-Brexit appeal. They despise his caution about their obsessions. They treat his failure to dent Labour’s poll lead with contempt. They believe, probably rightly, that in the 2 May local elections Sunak may lead the Tories to a humiliating defeat. But they hope this will panic the party into yet another change of leader and a lurch to their land of lost content on the populist right.

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A defeated Rishi Sunak should go, but my advice is: not too quickly | Martin Kettle

What our politics and government need is a restoration of continuity and stability – not a premature resignation

The Conservative party needs another leadership election right now like it needs a hole in the head. Most observers agree about this. Even Jacob Rees-Mogg accepts that four Tory leaders in one parliament would be more than the country could tolerate. This side of the general election, the die is cast. After the election is another matter.

So far, so fairly obvious. But here’s a thought. If Rishi Sunak leads the Tories to defeat this autumn, as most of his MPs now suspect will happen, he should not then resign immediately. Instead, Sunak should stay on as opposition leader. British politics doesn’t need a premature pre-election leadership contest of the sort that was again floated this week. But it doesn’t need a premature post-election contest either. And nor, in particular, does the Conservative party.

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ROH Madama Butterfly review – Grigorian inhabits the part to a degree one does not often experience

Royal Opera House, London
Asmik Grigorian is the standout attraction in this revival of Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier’s 2003 uncluttered production

There is continuing debate about how to stage Madama Butterfly in the 21st century – and even whether to stage it all. Covent Garden’s programme book for this ninth revival of Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier’s straightforward and uncluttered 2003 production goes through these uncomfortable issues of race, gender and politics at length. But, as Kunio Hara’s essay admits, the reality remains that audiences keep coming back to Madama Butterfly because of the emotional truth of the human voice in Puccini’s music.

And that is emphatically true in this revival. Performances of Madama Butterfly do not necessarily stand or fall by the performance of the title role. There is too much else of musical and operatic interest in Puccini’s dark masterpiece for that. But Asmik Grigorian (who shares the role of Cio-Cio-San with Hrachuhí Bassénz in this run) is beyond question the standout attraction here.

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This is the Tory party now: so devoid of values and leadership it can’t respond to blatantly racist remarks | Martin Kettle

Sunak should have immediately returned Frank Hester’s £10m. The PM’s speech about hate suddenly seems a long time ago

As racist, misogynist and generally incitement provoking remarks go, Frank Hester’s are not even borderline. Looking at Diane Abbott makes you “want to hate all black women”, he told a meeting at his healthcare technology firm in 2019. “I think she should be shot … It would be much better if she died.”

Not exactly nuanced, is it? Not much light and shade there. And it was not just about Abbott, this country’s first black female MP, though that was already more than enough. It was also about his company’s Chinese workers, its Indian workers, and about Malaysians, not just on one occasion but on several. Was it racist? If the word means anything, which it does, then of course the remarks were racist, even if the man himself says he abhors racism.

Martin Kettle is a Guardian columnist

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Jeremy Hunt gave us a hit-and-run budget. But unlike cornered chancellors past, he showed no shame | Martin Kettle

The Tories can see the writing on the wall – so they are intent on wrecking things for an incoming Labour government

There is nothing, says the former chancellor Ken Clarke in his memoir, “so dead and forgotten as old budgets”. A chancellor’s budget is the product of months of Treasury work. It provides a spectacular pantomime on the day it is delivered. It appears to matter hugely at the time. But, as Clarke himself admits, most budgets are effectively forgotten within months.

Jeremy Hunt’s 2024 budget, delivered on Wednesday, is unlikely to be an exception. Many of its figures can be taken with a pinch of salt. They will need to be adjusted, sometimes radically, in the months ahead. Hunt’s budget will be rapidly absorbed into the existing party battle, too. It has not changed the conversation much. Nevertheless, in one very particular and politically significant way it was genuinely memorable.

Martin Kettle is a Guardian columnist

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A lesson and a wake-up call from Rochdale: Labour has become too complacent about its big poll lead | Martin Kettle

There is no disputing that this episode has been damaging. Hopefully it will prompt Keir Starmer into an overdue rethink

More than four months into the Israel-Hamas war, and after the Labour party’s Rochdale byelection candidate shambles, it can come as something of a surprise to be reminded that most domestic opinion in Britain is emphatically not polarised between uncompromisingly pro-Israel and uncompromisingly pro-Hamas positions.

On the contrary, the majority of the public do not have a “side”, which they support at the expense of the other. While many media and political arguments continue to rage at white heat, the views of most people about where responsibility lies in the Middle East conflict, and how to end it, remain more shaded, variegated and morally careful. The majority are also deeply troubled about the war itself and by the damage it is causing to community relations here.

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In sickness or health, a new path will be needed for the British monarchy and the nation | Martin Kettle

Against the backdrop of the King’s illness, Britons remain divided: should our royal family be subject to evolution, reform or abolition?

On this, at least, everybody can identify with King Charles. His cancer diagnosis this week is a traumatic moment, and not just for him but for his family. It has also triggered instinctive public sympathy, not least for the monarch’s refreshing relative openness about his condition. All this has fired up a powerful media story, made more irresistible by the Prince Harry subplot, that will be part of our national life for months.

But do this week’s events actually have institutional implications for the monarchy? The instant reflex of many will be to say no. The British monarchy’s recent history of adaptiveness, under Queen Elizabeth II and now Charles, points that way too. After all, “the firm” is hardwired for continuity. Seamless adaptation is what the monarchy does. It has been doing it again this week, albeit wrapped in the privileged language in which going back to work becomes the “resumption of duties”. Few politicians have any interest in questioning any aspect of this.

Martin Kettle is a Guardian columnist

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After a historic deal in Northern Ireland, what next? Old political battles on a reshaped field | Martin Kettle

The new Northern Ireland plan is inescapably a compromise. Both the details and the repercussions will be aggressively contested

Start with the positives, for they are hard to dispute. The new Northern Ireland plan unpicks some of the economic and political damage inflicted by Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal. It makes the return of devolved power-sharing government possible. It ends the DUP’s two-year democracy boycott. It compels the rival parties to work together again, in line with the 1998 Belfast Good Friday agreement. It also releases a £3.3bn sweetener from the UK Treasury that Northern Ireland’s battered public realm badly needs.

All of that is long overdue. But is it really a new dawn in the north? Some have been seduced into describing this week’s deal in these terms. Maybe they will be proved right. Let us hope so. But the evidence is still only thin, and there is a long way to go before the “up and running” cliche is truly accurate.

Martin Kettle is a Guardian columnist

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