“A NEW dawn has broken, has it not?”
Those were the first words spoken by Tony Blair to an expectant nation waking up to a landslide Labour election victory on that sunny May morning in 1997.
Next week, millions of voters are expecting another new dawn as — if the polls are to be trusted — we face the end of 14 years of Tory rule and the arrival of a new Labour Prime Minister.
With just a few days to go until polling stations open, pretty much everyone has accepted that Labour are going to win.
The only questions remaining are how big a majority Sir Keir Starmer will get and how badly the Conservatives will lose.
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Oh, and the teensy-weensy, infinitesimally small, don’t-worry-your-pretty-little-head-about-it matter of just what sort of Labour Prime Minister we’re about to get.
Change isn’t always better
Because, despite four years as Labour leader, numerous speeches, hundreds of interviews and hours facing questions in TV election debates, no one is any the wiser as to who Sir Keir Starmer actually is and — more importantly — what he plans to do if he takes power.
Sure, there’s a glossy manifesto with some spending commitments in it, and rumour has it that his father was a toolmaker (although he doesn’t like to mention it), but does anyone really know which Keir Starmer we’re going to get?
Will we get the self-described “socialist” who called Jeremy Corbyn his “friend”, tried to stop Brexit and who promised party members in the 2020 Labour leadership election that he’d hike income taxes on the better off and nationalise everything he could touch?
Or will we get the Keir Starmer currently running for election as Mr Dull But Reliable Technocrat and insisting he will transform our country’s fortunes but has no plans to put up our taxes to pay for it?
Is Starmer a secret Red Under the Bed or a Brylcreemed Blairite?
Judging by his manifesto, it’s all going to be solved by having more wind and solar power, putting VAT on private school fees and getting people around the table and talking with them.
I genuinely have no idea — and I’m not sure anyone else does either.
Yet, this is the man who is urging the country to vote for him and “vote for change” on Thursday.
But what KIND of change is he promising? A change to what? And how much will it cost us?
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Because change isn’t always for the better.
Jumping off a cliff is a change, but the outcome rather depends on what’s at the bottom of that cliff, doesn’t it?
The truth is we don’t know what change a Starmer premiership will bring.
We do, however, have a few clues.
When Tony Blair entered Number 10 27 years ago, on that sunny morning on Friday, May 2, he also enjoyed a spring-like financial outlook with the economy booming, plenty of taxpayers’ money to spend on schools and hospitals, and the peace dividend of the Cold War ending.
Keir Starmer, by contrast, faces a much gloomier first day in office: a stagnant economy, the rising cost of living, record NHS waiting lists, the immigration crisis, the housing shortage, sluggish productivity, social care in chaos, rising violent crime — not to mention wars in Ukraine and the Middle East.
And what is Starmer’s big plan to deal with all of this?
Judging by his manifesto, it’s all going to be solved by having more wind and solar power, putting VAT on private school fees and getting people around the table and talking with them.
That’s pretty much it.
The man’s a genius — why did NO ONE think of this before?
Whether it’s talking to President Macron about returning Channel migrants or to the BMA about ending the junior doctors’ strikes, all Starmer says he needs to do is talk to people over tea and biscuits and everything will work out fine.
He certainly is a man with immense faith in his own powers of persuasion.
Or maybe he’s pinning his hopes on the chocolate Hobnobs to save the day. Who knows?
Either way, Starmer won’t be able to deliver the sort of “change” that his voters will be expecting.
There’s nothing in his plans, he says, about raising taxes.
Ramping up culture wars
But there’s also nothing in his plans that will deliver growth and get the country moving again.
The only cost-free change Starmer can guarantee to deliver will be ramping up the culture wars
The national debt will remain sky-high, there will be no extra billions for the NHS or schools, the Channel migrant boats won’t miraculously stop coming, the public sector won’t suddenly become efficient, we won’t get a better trade deal with the EU, housing costs will continue to go up, teens will carry on stabbing other teens and the roads will still be covered in pot holes.
The only cost-free change Starmer can guarantee to deliver will be ramping up the culture wars, whether it’s pushing trans ideology on to our children, racial divisions in the workplace or putting the climate hysteria cult on steroids.
And who in their right mind can possibly think THAT will be a change for the better?
Come rain or shine, whatever election results we wake up to next Friday morning, we will finally find out just who our new Prime Minister will be and what sort of change his government will deliver.
The Labour leader’s day will finally have dawned. Now will the real Keir Starmer please stand up.
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