Cautious optimism

It’s two weeks since Labour won a landslide victory in the British general election. The voters of the UK vigorously applied a hefty boot to the ample posteriors of a legion of Tory shysters, handing Keir Starmer’s party 413 out of 650 seats at Westminster.

On polling day, I’ll admit to feeling underwhelmed. Removing a government that has mismanaged the nation for 14 long years was a relief. However, there was little of the euphoria I felt in similar circumstances in 1997. Grinding austerity, a collapse in public service, a surge in foodbank dependency and an uneasy sense that nothing in this country actually works properly anymore all suggested an incoming government needed to bring a bigger vision than Labour had offered in opposition.

So, not much euphoria. Schadenfreude, sure. It would take a heart of stone not to be cheered by the likes of Truss and Rees-Mogg losing their seats. But there was still an uneasy sense that a new government would offer a slightly more palatable version of the same old slop.

Two weeks on, some of that sense of ‘meh’ can be unpacked. Britain’s problems have not been miraculously solved. Our infrastructure still creaks, our media still (largely) sucks and the to-do list around Whitehall isn’t getting any shorter. But there’s a greater sense of change than I felt on July 4, and that’s entirely welcome.

We could start with the new cabinet. Just 4% of Starmer’s ministers were educated in private schools. That’s by far the lowest ratio in British political history. Instead of old Etonians, raised to believe that the old school tie confers a natural right to rule, we have a crop of individuals who have, by and large, worked for their achievements. We have people like Bridget Phillipson, who grew up on a rundown estate in Washington, Tyne & Wear, but managed to get to Oxford. No mere career politician, she returned to Sunderland after graduating and worked to support women facing domestic violence. This is categorically not an old school tie appointment, and Bridget is one of many with comparable CVs.

There’s also a sense that non-political appointments are made on the basis of knowledge rather than connections. Bringing in a businessman to talk about prison reform might seem like another man-in-a-suit kind of gig. But James Timpson has given his company an explicit mission to hire released prisoners and help them adjust to civvy street. Regardless of how much you agree with his opinions, it’s impossible to deny that they come from a position of genuine expertise and experience rather than think-tank posturing.

It feels like there are adults in the corridors of power again. The instant decisions to cancel populist but ill-advised policies like the deportation of asylum seekers to Rwanda or the moratorium over onshore wind farms point to a government that won’t be bullied by simplistic arguments or the ill-advised politics of gut feeling. On the international stage we can begin to hope that the Brexit era politics of the extended middle digit is coming to an unlamented end. Partnership and cooperation with our neighbours will compromise nobody’s sovereignty: we’re quite literally better off working together.

Wednesday’s King’s Speech, outlining the legislative program for the first year of Starmer’s government, also shows promise. We’ll gloss over the absurdity of a man donning a multi-million-pound hat to talk about a cost-of-living crisis and focus on the substance. There’s evidence that the social care crisis might be back on the agenda at last. There are efforts to support workers’ rights, plans to bring our inadequate, overpriced rail network back into state control: these are solid, achievable proposals that can make Britain better.

Of course, it’s a long journey. Not everything will go smoothly. Like every government, this one will do things that disappoint, frustrate and annoy me. I’d love to hear more about halting Israel’s assault on Gaza, for example, and I’m hoping for less culture war nonsense about minorities. But, even when that happens, I’ll have some confidence that it is acting in good faith – and that’s something I haven’t felt for more than a decade.

Hat-tip to Mike Singleton for his election-night hot take on the polls. While I share his concern over Reform’s showing, I remain hopeful that a spell of sensible, sensitive government can undermine extremists at both ends of the political spectrum.