Shocking Report: Undecided Voters Sabotage UK’s Job Market!

Good morning. If you can make it through Monday a few more days, Stephen will be back. But I’m chiming in today, looking at some FT analysis and new polls on Labour’s electoral prospects, as well as the party’s handling of expectations around a possible victory and what it might be capable of doing with it. My colleague Jude Webber, the Irish correspondent, will be here tomorrow.

Let it grow (more than the rest of the G7)

The FT series at work, Starmer project, ridden by Jim Pickard, was challenging even for those familiar with the terrain. Looming over much of it is Rachel Reeves, the aspiring chancellor, and her battle for supremacy in the shadow government. You want to rule out any policy that gives the impression that Labor, once in power, can play fast and furious with fiscal discipline. For those who enjoy the Westminster soap opera aspects, the latest installment in the political story, about building a green economy, also features Reeves confronting Ed Miliband and his brief on energy and climate change. Her influence in the Starmer circle is often mentioned along with a note from her on her record as party leader (Elections Fought: 1. Electoral Wins: 0).

Today’s article by Chris Giles, our economics editor, deals with the “desolate” economic landscape. that Labor could inherit – prettily presented data will not look good to Reeves and the team. Chris explores the political issues the outlook implies for Labour, including how to manage public expectations to change public services without spending sprees.

Here’s another one, though, that sparked an interesting talk this week. Starmer has promised to give the UK the best “sustained growth” in the G7. He cannot control what happens in other comparison countries, which already makes it a difficult commitment to keep. But even the Labor leader’s allies lack confidence in delivering on their promise by holding the current line on Brexit, which is to make it work and not roll it back.

A couple of nights ago Neil Kinnock, the former Labor leader, admitted: “I worry – with great loyalty – about how it will be possible to achieve the ambition, or progress towards the realization of the ambition, of a high and sustained rate of economic growth in the absence of our commitment to the single market.” It was speaking to the UK in a changing European think tankand in bearded elder statesman mode.

He also warned against taking the popular SW1 party game “Will it be 1992 or 1997?” too seriously, pointing out that every general election is different. There really is reason to think that more outcomes are possible than one imitating 1992 (John Major’s narrow victory over Kinnock’s party) and 1997 (voters walk away from the Conservatives and hand Tony Blair an overwhelming majority of 179 seats ).

Hung up

Kinnock’s views on comparing the purported #GE2024 analysis to previous elections are interesting because his underdog 1992 campaign was plagued by endless speculation about the possibility that there might be a hung parliament. He got completely out of hand and was partly blamed (along with a ruthless campaign by the Conservatives on Labour’s tax plans) for the outcome against expectations. Even in the Liberal Democrat camp, where one might expect glee at talk of disproportionate influence for the smaller party after an inconclusive result, strategists still see public concern over 1992 post-election deals as a cautionary tale about how not to campaign – they only got 20 seats.

Neither Labor nor the Liberal Democrats want to repeat the mistakes of 1992. As I wrote a few days ago, Ed Davey’s leadership of the third party is a gradual and constant affair. He doesn’t want to trumpet either opposition to Brexit or power-sharing with Labor in case it scares away disillusioned Tory horses in the small number of mainly Tory-held seats in south-east England that he thinks could fall to his party this time. But not admitting any possibility of influence at work risks seeming irrelevant.

For the main opposition, of course, it’s a completely different question: why admit the possibility of relying on other parties when you want to secure a majority government after what will be 14 years without power? Expect one new poll for pro-EU group Best for Britain, released yesterday, to dominate much of the debate for the rest of the week. Suggests a healthy Labor victory e majority of 140 seats based on redrawn constituency boundaries (and a transformed framework in Scotland after the SNP implosion).

Not good news for Team Starmer, however, as the FT policy team explains: there is an opportunity for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to avert defeat, so yes, you guessed it, we could end up with a parliament suspended. And this is due to the high level of undecided voters.

Both stories I focused on today, the economic plan and the prospects for a healthy win, actually come back to a central issue for Starmer. There is a tendency to assume that there will be a change of government because many voters believe the situation is dire. As a poll last month for The New Britain Project, a campaign group, showed, 58% say “nothing works anymore”. But in the same survey, 47% of swing voters were hesitant about Labor because “I fear they won’t be able to do a better job than the Conservatives in solving the cost-of-living crisis”. Nearly 75% of all respondents said they lack confidence in the ability of politicians to solve the country’s biggest problems.

Labor may need a little more of that “hope-changing stuff” to score a victory.

You are cold as ice

The pre-election mock war has indeed begun, so just think: there will be so many months ahead where top-level politicians will find peculiar and twisted ways to fend off criticism of their preferred candidate for prime minister. Here’s Kinnock, who was damned hotheaded during his time in charge of Labour, defending Starmer’s alleged narrow-mindedness at Tuesday’s UKICE event: ‘His passion is cold – ice cold – but by God it is effective”. Damn.

Now try this

The rest of us are really no match for Stephen’s extracurricular cultural activities. But here’s a nice cultural-political nonfiction crossover: The invention of Essexa new book by Tim Burrows, which I reviewed for this weekend’s paper and can be read online here. Come for the swing seats and target voters (hello “Essex Man”), stay for the hair-raising exploits of Southend seafront kids, gangsters, reality stars and my only famous ancestor, the wizard Cunning Murrell. It’s a great read, and the miasma of the swamps hangs over you long after you’ve closed it.

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