Is effective centre-left government possible? Starmer has yet to prove that – but prove it he must

The PM faces conflicting ideological demands. After the budget and Labour conference, we will see how adept he is at managing them

All governments disappoint us in the end. Some policies fail, divisions open up, ideological dead-ends are reached and national problems are left unsolved. The big question is at what point widespread disillusion sets in: after a few months, a few years, or longer. The answer has decisive consequences for a government’s sense of itself and for its electoral fate.

You might think this government, only seven weeks old, the first entirely new Labour administration for a quarter of a century, with a huge majority and ministers working hard while much of the country is on holiday, will be safe from voter disdain for quite a while. Yet that assumption may be optimistic. Not just because of Labour’s thin total vote at the election, or the immense national problems it has inherited, but for other, less examined reasons. Ruling from the centre-left is particularly difficult, as Labour governments have regularly demonstrated. And changes in the media and in how voters think have made that task even harder.

Andy Beckett is a Guardian columnist

Continue reading...