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Keir Starmer: a technocrat without a plan The PM's vision is politically incoherent

This week's Labour conference worshipped an acceptance of austerity. (Photo by Leon Neal/Getty Images)

This week's Labour conference worshipped an acceptance of austerity. (Photo by Leon Neal/Getty Images)


September 28, 2024   8 mins

Two episodes crystallised my opinion of Starmer. First, his dithering over school closures during the early months of the pandemic. Sir Keir changed his mind on the matter no less than six times. Boris, with some justice, was able to observe that he had had “more flip-flops than Bournemouth beach”. Second, his hit-and-run. Later that autumn, he knocked over a Deliveroo cyclist while reversing his SUV. In eager anticipation of his appointment with his tailor, he made off before Met officers arrived on the scene.

Cumulatively, these incidents reveal more than mere quirks of character. They tell us that behind the façade of technocratic competence — confected largely by the liberal press — is a man utterly out of his depth. Indeed, his chronic indecisiveness, let alone the vestiary vanity that dictates his behaviour, betrays a sensibility rather at odds with the trappings of technocracy. Technocrats typically see themselves as political plumbers, dour managers capable of unsentimentally transcending popular preoccupations in order to push through unpopular, if necessary, policies. Above all, they have a vision, however misguided; take their appalling record in the eurozone or the Third World.

Starmer, it is true, mimics the lexicon of technocrats with remarkable facility, all the trite soundbites about “sound money” and “short-term pain for long-term good”. Versions of these dicta have been repeated ad nauseam, most recently at the Labour Party conference in Liverpool this week. Yet the fact is that Starmer is no technocrat. He is, rather, a man without a plan, cluelessly blundering and muddling through from one crisis to the next. Lacking a vision for Britain, the “short-term pain” he promises with Calvinist glee can only be a prelude to long-term pain.

Political incoherence, while damaging socially, can be rewarding individually. Indeed, it has stood Starmer in good stead. Possessed of a cynicism bordering on nihilism, our chameleon was happily reconciled to Osbornism in 2015 before taking a seat on Corbyn’s shadow cabinet only a year later. Two years on, by then already a darling of Islingtonian Europeanism, he led the anti-democratic putsch to reverse the result of the referendum, only to abandon the demand once its real objective — the displacement of the Left, of course, not re-entry into the EU — was achieved in 2019. His ascent to the party leadership followed shortly thereafter, on the strength of retaining the slate of reforms promised in the manifesto of old, including sweeping nationalisation and redistribution. Unsurprisingly, these pledges were swiftly jettisoned in a bid to refashion his party as a cut-price New Labour tribute act.

Adherents of a tradition less susceptible to spin-doctoring would no doubt have been left scratching their heads at Starmer’s seemingly endless capacity for reverse-ferreting. As it is, though, the mavens of self-respecting liberal opinion hardly batted an eyelid. The rare pleas for clarity voiced in the usual quarters of Labourist opinion — “Labour desperately needs to stand for something,” declared the New Statesman in 2021 — were drowned out by the plaudits of pundits praising such concessions to electability.

Much the same was said of Starmer’s bot-like proclamations to the press. We were led to believe that colourless Keir doesn’t have a favourite novel or poem, let alone a discerning literary taste. As a child, he had no fears, no phobias, the Guardian reported. “He doesn’t know what he dreamed last night — or ever: ‘I don’t dream.’” In the end, though, his carefully crafted conventionality counted for little. With fewer votes than Corbyn received in 2017 and 2019, Starmer was able to seize power only thanks to the distorting effect of the simple plurality system.

Having won, Starmer nevertheless finds himself at a loss. He has achieved power, but he has no idea what to do with it. There will be no more austerity, we are told, but we have every reason to believe otherwise. Committed, like Procrustes, to shortening the limbs of the state to fit the size of their budgetary bed, Starmer and Rachel Reeves have effectively set about outlawing growth. The first casualty, before the election, was the £28 billion “green prosperity” plan, scrapped in favour of a paltry £7 billion National Wealth Fund, literal peanuts compared to, say, Biden’s $369 billion climate package to reboot growth. Then, after the election, our austeritarian girlboss doubled down, doing for the £1.7 billion Stonehenge tunnel and slashing winter fuel payments for pensioners to the tune of £1.5 billion. All this, ostensibly, to help fill the £22 billion “black hole” that Reeves discovered on taking office — almost half of it in fact of her own making; Labour signed off on a £9.4 billion wage settlement with, among others, striking junior doctors and train drivers. Meanwhile, Labour has also committed to enforce additional spending cuts to the tune of £20 billion every year with the aim of shrinking public debt in year five of Starmer’s Labour.

Like a rope fetishist, then, Reeves has tightly bound the British economy. There can be no room for growth in such a circumscribed setup, the Financial Times and Institute for Fiscal Studies have independently warned. The figures speak volumes about the priorities of Starmer’s Labour. Capital investment, and therefore growth, have been sacrificed on the altar of wage expenditure for what has become a tiny aristocracy of Labour, while the Deliverooisation of the rest of the working class proceeds apace. On these benighted and un-unionised sections, austerity and casualisation can agreeably be imposed with no great loss to the carpetbagging Labour MPs of rentier, managerial and lobbyist backgrounds.

“Like a rope fetishist, then, Reeves has tightly bound the British economy.”

The upshot will be a return to Osbornite austerity after the brief one-nation Tory interlude of Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak. Reeves denies this, even as she continues to subscribe to a heterodoxy no more dubious than extispicy, divination by means of inspecting animal entrails. “To my mum,” she says, “every penny mattered, and the basic test for whoever is Chancellor is to bring that attitude to our public finances.” Now, the cheese-paring mindset may have some value in the kitchen; but as every economist worth his salt has pointed out, it is of no use whatsoever in running the 6th-largest economy of the world. “Hard choices,” as she has it, in practice mean underinvestment in infrastructure, and accordingly low productivity and no growth, which in turns means less tax revenue and more spending cuts. It’s a vicious cycle. We know this not only through the sophistication of economic theory, but through historical experience.

Time was when Britain was the most productive nation in the world. These days, however, peer countries, even strike-ridden France, are on average 15% more productive. Post-communist Poland is set to overtake Britain on this metric by 2030. The contrast with our neighbours across the Channel, a recent policy paper persuasively argues, is painfully instructive. There, in France, massive investment in housing, infrastructure, and energy have sustained greater productivity even as French workers work fewer hours and take longer vacations, as anyone who has visited Paris in August knows. With roughly the same population, France has 38 million homes to Britain’s 30 million, with the result that the French enjoy lower rents and mortgages. Thanks to investments in clean energy, especially nuclear power, electricity is half as cheap as in Britain. France has opened 1,740 miles of high-speed rail since 1980; Britain, 67 miles. As with rail, so with roads: France has 12,000 kilometres of motorways; Britain, 4,000. Since 1945, metropolitan Paris has trebled in size; London is only a few % larger. Britain holds the dubious distinction of having Europe’s largest city without mass transit: Leeds. Chronic underinvestment, far below the OECD average, is to blame for all of this.

The upshot has been plain to see. When Starmer was sworn in, he took over a country in which 4 million households were in debt over utility bills, 7 million were forgoing food, heat, toiletries to make ends meet. The penny-pinchers at the Treasury could take pride in running the cheapest health service in the advanced capitalist world: the EU14 spent 21% more per capita on healthcare in the 2010s. The collateral damage, however, was world-leading cancer mortality rates, and the lowest number of MRI and CT scanners in the developed world. No doubt Starmer’s majority was augmented by the fact that 8% of Britons were awaiting an NHS procedure at the time of the election; or that real wages have flatlined, by some measures even fallen, since 2008.

Had there been no Osbornite austerity, and had capricious bureaucrats likewise not denied practically every investment proposal emanating from the private sector, it is likely — following the 1979-2008 trend line — that Britain would be some 25% more productive today. This, a back-of-the-envelope calculation shows, would have translated into a GDP per capita of £41,800 instead of £33,500, producing tax revenues of £1.28 billion instead £1.03 billion, with the result that our annual deficit of £85 billion in these years would have instead been an annual surplus of £170 billion.

It follows that in fetishising the fiscal straitjacket, Osborne, and by extension Starmer and Reeves, have in fact got it backwards. It was tax-and-spend investment that deflated the debt from 250% to 20% of GDP from the late-Forties to the early-Nineties; and it was the imposition of austerity and effective banning of investment that has now inflated it to 100%.

There was a time when politicos understood this. In the post-war period, they could be sanguine about high debt, knowing that they were committed to growing the pie, and assured by Keynes’s maxim: “Anything we can actually do we can afford.” These days, Reeves and her ilk are more likely to pull gargoyle faces at the very thought: “If we can’t afford it, we can’t do it,” she has declared.

Somehow foreign policy is exempt from these strictures. Starmer has promised Zelensky £3 billion a year “for as long as it takes”, a strong disincentive, if any, to diplomatic settlement in Donbas. His foreign secretary, meanwhile, has outlined his grim vision of “progressive realism” in the pages of Foreign Affairs, essentially a return to military power projection and democracy promotion at taxpayers’ expense, topped up with an unswerving commitment to Nato expansion.

Starmer, furthermore, is unruffled by the prospect of creating a £13 billion hole in public finances by bringing down legal migration — bad news for Britons a touch long in the tooth, who depend on bright young things coming from abroad to pay into their pension pots. As we have seen, Starmer is coming after the elderly; after the winter fuel subsidy, the triple-locked pension might be next. More pressing for our ruler is the £3 billion spent on housing the 30,000-odd refugees (0.05% of the national population) arriving annually in small boats.

To save us from the indignity of having to facilitate the rapid assimilation of Syrian seamstresses and Afghan architects into the national populace, Starmer strolled about the Villa Doria Pamphili taking lessons from the Italian prime minister. No doubt reminding her that he is a figlio di un attrezzista, he praised at length the “remarkable progress” Giorgia Meloni had made in tackling refugees — which includes impounding vessels and curbing the funding of humanitarian groups who rescue migrants from drowning at sea, not to mention forging a deal with a Tunisian despot accused of torturing and dumping refugees on the Libyan border without food and shelter. Britain, Starmer says, has a lot to “learn” from Italy’s handling of refugees. One wonders if these are the practices he had in mind when he once declared that “the best of British values are also the best of Christian values”.

Then again, morality has never been at the heart of Starmer’s pitch. Fiscal prudence has. Truth be told, however, it’s really much ado about nothing. Based on the paltry figures I have already mentioned, unsuspecting readers might be forgiven for thinking that the Treasury has only a few billion lying about to toy with. The fact is that state spending exceeds £1 trillion. And a lot can be done with that sum, as Starmer himself sometimes recognises. Offsetting the doom and gloom that has been the core of his messaging, he has on occasion gestured towards ambition, as in his pledge to build 1.5 million homes over the course of his term. Good news, but I wouldn’t hold my breath. It will take a sea change in culture to combat council nimbyism and rentier interest. Michael Gove, that Whig interloper in the Tory party, discovered this the hard way when he attempted leasehold and eviction reforms. Today, 85 landlords sit in the Commons, 44 of them Labour’s, including Jas Athwal, the current parliament’s biggest slumlord with 15 mouldy and ant-infested rental properties to his name. It is likewise too early to tell what Labour’s sugar daddies like Lord Alli want from Starmer in return for indulging his penchant for paid-for pants.

At any event, reforming ambition doesn’t come naturally to self-respecting sensible centrists like Starmer. When it comes to fixing Britain, he declared at the Liverpool party conference, “there are no easy answers”. But there are. For one thing, a one-off, 1% wealth tax on millionaires, paid annually for five years, would raise a whopping £260 billion without punishing pensioners. For another, the Treasury could stop paying interest on the reserve balances of commercial banks, a scandalous subsidy to the tune of £35 billion a year. Labour would be saved from the unedifying spectacle of haggling over trifles like skint hippies in a Levantine flea market. Failing bold moves like these, it is hard not to come away with the impression that Starmer and his cronies are not serious people.


Pratinav Anil is the author of two bleak assessments of 20th-century Indian history. He teaches at St Edmund Hall, Oxford.

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0 01
0 01
2 months ago

Technocrats like Starmer are followers, not leaders. But they crave to be in positions of leadership because they like the idea of power, but don’t like the responsibilities of power nor do they have the temperament to wield it. They say there are two types of people in power, Foxes and lions, and in this day and age we have an overabundance of foxes and a major shortage of lions. This applies throughout the entire western world and not just in Britain and that’s why it’s In such a bad shape.

j watson
j watson
2 months ago
Reply to  0 01

Way too simplistic. Like him or loath him you don’t get to be Director of CPS, head of a major political party and then PM without wanting responsibility.
I don’t buy the Foxes/Lions analogy although there may be something in the public’s natural tiring of a certain type of personality and desire for a change. And we can have a bit too much Lion all ‘roar’ and little substance.

Caradog Wiliams
Caradog Wiliams
2 months ago
Reply to  0 01

He is called a technocrat because he lacks personality. Politicians traditionally have personality and, often, that is all they have. One comes to mind, one who was planning a commando raid to get our vaccines back.

Will K
Will K
2 months ago

Its illogical to expect good leaders to be reliably elected under a democratic system. Half of the voters are below median intelligence, yet are given an equal vote.

Ian Barton
Ian Barton
2 months ago
Reply to  Will K

As most of those above the median frequently fail to demonstrate any extra “intelligence”they may purport to have, then your point is moot

j watson
j watson
2 months ago
Reply to  Will K

You should go read the parliamentary debates of the 1860’s before the Franchise was further extended in 1867 – same argument. Led to 1870 Education Act as the Ruling class started to panic. And the moral of the story is the same.

Lancashire Lad
Lancashire Lad
2 months ago
Reply to  j watson

Latterly, the over-extension of university education has had the effect of saddling huge swathes of young people with debts that contribute to housing unaffordability and denuded our practical skills base whilst churning out degrees with little value and indoctrinating minds in woke-speak.

Is it any wonder the author utterly fails to address not “what” Starmer does, or fails to do, but “why”.

Both are absolutely clueless about the population outside their bubble, as was Blair, under whom those education changes took flight. The very name of their party now serves as a form of mockery.

The same applies to the Tories, of course. The world has moved on, and left both parties behind. Perhaps the author might care to turn his historical attention to that, and write an article that would serve some purpose other than cobbling together a few factoids.

Caradog Wiliams
Caradog Wiliams
2 months ago
Reply to  Will K

You lead me to repeat my question, ‘What is the meaning of democracy?’ It is clear that many contributors to the Comments use the word but don’t understand it. You sound like a civil servant – one hired because of a high IQ but having no concept of life outside your circle. First define Democracy.

Brett H
Brett H
2 months ago

But in fact we’re not getting good leaders under a democratic system.

Hugh Bryant
Hugh Bryant
2 months ago
Reply to  Will K

We don’t live under a democratic system.
It’s an abuse of the language to describe a system like ours, where the elctorate gets to vote once every five years on a vague manifesto that will be torn up anyway as soon as its mendacious authors get into office, as a ‘democracy’. The Swiss have the closest thing to a democracy. Our system is an oligarchy.

Caradog Wiliams
Caradog Wiliams
2 months ago
Reply to  Hugh Bryant

My point exactly but you said it better. We don’t have democracy – not even pretend democracy. Truly, back to Athenian times, democracy meant majority but, even then the electorate did not include women or slaves – so not a democracy for today. De Tocqueville wanted democracy in America to mean the majority but overseen by a clever few who could stop massive swings of opinion, to stop lynchings when there was a murder. We have a version of this but the ‘clever few’ have morphed into an élite which is so far away from real people that nobody really supports them – hence a 19% vote from the electorate.
Democracy à la Suisse seems to work but maybe only because of the unusual make-up of the country – who knows? For me democracy means the majority because there are too many single-issue minorities to consider sensibly.

Hugh Bryant
Hugh Bryant
2 months ago

I think the key to democracy is subsidiarity: if the parish council can do it then the borough council shouldn’t – all the way up to national government which should basically just be responsible for foreign relations and trade negotiations. A modern economy and society like ours simply cannot be run effectively by half-a-dozen poorly qualified people in SW1 whose policies are based on the work of other people who have never been outside the education system..

Caradog Wiliams
Caradog Wiliams
2 months ago
Reply to  Hugh Bryant

Good try. Council elections have an even lower turnout. Agree that a handful of people in Westminster can’t control the complexities of everyday life but parish councils…?
I see that you want to give everything to local level but then you go back to people who have a lot (too much?) spare time who want to do good things; basically doing good makes them feel good about themselves.
I think that all levels of control, even minor ones, would need professionals – people who receive pay for a job and who can be disciplined by a boss.

Hugh Bryant
Hugh Bryant
2 months ago

Council elections have an even lower turnout.
That’s why they need tax-raising powers. You’ll pretty quickly take an interest when your bank account is involved.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
10 days ago
Reply to  Hugh Bryant

Councils employ thousands of teachers, social workers, refuse collectors, accountants, community workers, etc and have large budgets, yet many of the people paying council tax bills don’t turn out to vote.

Last edited 10 days ago by UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
10 days ago

Aren’t you confusing paid officials (planners, librarians, gardeners, teachers etc) with elected representatives who were paid very modest allowance and expenses for each meeting attended, in my day ?

Admittedly, councillors, MSPs and MPs all seem to be generously rewarded these days, but they aren’t really employees.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
10 days ago

If 40% of the electorate didn’t participate in the July 2024 election, then the result is of limited validity. That percentage is twice the percentage of electors who backed the party now running the country.

A Robot
A Robot
2 months ago

The author observes:”bringing down legal migration — bad news for Britons a touch long in the tooth, who depend on bright young things coming from abroad to pay into their pension pots” A minority of new immigrants are in jobs that are sufficintly valuable to be net contributors, but the majority aren’t.
The author complains that not enough houses are going to be built and also that there won’t be a large enough number of immigrants. I wonder if the author has ever given any thought about where thos immigrants live?

j watson
j watson
2 months ago
Reply to  A Robot

On the financial ‘contribution’ of migrants to UK – the data suggests the average is they make a net contribution, but that some do not. You exaggerated your point a bit. I think we’ve had too much low pay/low skill migration, but that’s a symptom of our investment culture and I would not blame the immigrants (not saying you are but important to be clear)
On the Housing issue – if we had the same ratio of housing to population as France we’d have 8m more dwellings and the tension on supply would be much less. Awkward fact that for those who like to blame migrants for housing shortage.

Andrew R
Andrew R
2 months ago
Reply to  j watson

On the housing issue – if we import five times the number of people year on year for thirty years, it shouldn’t take a genius to realise there’s going to be a housing mismatch.

The electorate have for twenty years wanted immigration to come down but it has repeatedly fallen on deaf ears. We have to build 200k houses per year for 25 years (and to build over an area the size of Surrey) to satisfy existing demand. This will mean building inferior dwellings in already overcrowded areas, unsuitable areas and place greater strain on the countryside and the environment in general.

People are not blaming migrants but their elected government(s) as concerns are still being brushed away. Resources will become more scarce and expensive, conflict will eventually occur. An awkward fact for the increasingly unhinged pro mass migration lobby.

Hugh Bryant
Hugh Bryant
2 months ago
Reply to  Andrew R

it shouldn’t take a genius
It shouldn’t even take someone with basic common sense. Truth is the globalists know perfectly well how damaging this has been for ordinary Brits – but so long as house prices and rents go on rising and wages go on falling they’ll go on pretending.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
2 months ago
Reply to  j watson

Probably worth really scrutinising the stats. One migrant for labour purposes could turn a positive contribution however once you allow family migration the overall tick usually turns negative. Even more so for study migrants. Jan van Der Beek has published a comprehensive paper on this using the Dutch welfare state with good data (“borderless welfare state”)

Hugh Bryant
Hugh Bryant
2 months ago
Reply to  j watson

the data suggests
Most of the time the ‘data suggests’ what the people collecting it want it to suggest – particularly where immigration is concerned.

Michael Marron
Michael Marron
2 months ago
Reply to  j watson

I suggest you read a little more widely. University of Amsterdam have calculated the net annual average cost of immigration from 2000 to 2019 at 17 billion a year. Our levels are far higher, so probably about 50billion. Plus five years inflation.
Arecent British study confirmed similar costs.
BTW – 10/12 million immigrants over the past twenty odd years. Without them we would need 8 million fewer houses.

Pedro the Exile
Pedro the Exile
2 months ago
Reply to  j watson

the data suggests 
The data doesn’t suggets anything-it concluded that migrants on average are a net cost over their lifespan.

William Cameron
William Cameron
2 months ago
Reply to  j watson

Govt spends £17000 per person per annum – how many migrant family members pay that much tax ? Virtually none.

Andrew Fisher
Andrew Fisher
2 months ago
Reply to  j watson

Things can have several different causes! The idea that a net LEGAL migration figure of 700,000 per annum doesn’t cause pressure on housing is completely absurd!

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
10 days ago
Reply to  Andrew Fisher

And we now know that it was over 900,000 net.

nigel roberts
nigel roberts
2 months ago
Reply to  j watson

If one immigrant multi-millionaire entrepreneur pays taxes and a hundred don’t, then “on average” there could be a net contribution, even with 99% of the sample being non-contributors.

tom j
tom j
2 months ago
Reply to  A Robot

Yes I thought it was an effective and scathing attack on Starmer, interspersed with wild and unworkable alternative policies. Still, it’s a start to recognise that Starmer has no answers, even if the author doesn’t either.

A Robot
A Robot
2 months ago
Reply to  tom j

That’s a fair point. The piece was billed as an “essay”, so in the spirit of de Montaigne, an informal, conversational style is appropriate. But when the piece includes asserfions of purported fact that I think are dubious, then I am still going to draw the attention of other readers to such shortcomings.

glyn harries
glyn harries
2 months ago
Reply to  tom j

The author clearly had answers. Replace the lost investments of the 2010-2020 era that have been so disastrous for industry and society.

Susan Grabston
Susan Grabston
2 months ago
Reply to  A Robot

Housing data from govt and Reading university indicates that immigrants explain approximately 33% of the lack of housing availability. Other factors include things like increased single households (people never marrying/coupling up and longevity increasing nos of widows/ widowers) and family breakdown creating multiple households (mum or dad with kids present). According to the reports immigrants also force property prices up by 1-2% (long term house price growth 3.4% per annum), so explaining approximately 50% of price increases. Migrants also impact social housing with over 50% of London’s social housing now taken by foreign-born persons. Professor David Miles (Imperial) produced data 3 weeks ago indicating that low skilled immigrants cost the state £151k each from ages of 25 (assumed age of arrival) to 65 and over £250k if they live into their 80s. The wage at which immigrants become net contributors is £48k. Professor Miles work was done as part of his role for the OBR, so.at the heart of government fiscal policy. “Bright young things” would be nice. But that is not the UK’s immigration policy. Total GPD (income) appears to trump net contribution. Never worked for a business where the chair told me that running that P&L model was the winning formula.
.

Andrew F
Andrew F
2 months ago
Reply to  Susan Grabston

Great post although I am not convinced that mass immigration is only responsible for 33% of lack of housing availability.
If you bring 500k immigrants per year but build only 200k housing units, it is clear that without mass immigration there would be no housing shortage.

William Cameron
William Cameron
2 months ago
Reply to  Susan Grabston

Oddly , if govt restricted lending on housing to its previously sensible level of three times income -house prices would come down without laying a single brick.

Ken Bowman
Ken Bowman
2 months ago

Actually as it is not possible in this country to build any house for 3 times average income almost all house building would cease.

Andrew Fisher
Andrew Fisher
2 months ago

No that particular point is not correct. The pressure on housing remains, although the balance between different forms of tenure might differ. If fewer people on modest incomes can get mortgages, there will be more people forced into the rental sector. That would raise rents, the value of rental properties, a bigger proportion of the latter and subsequently the value of other housing.

A Robot
A Robot
2 months ago

The episodes that formed my attitude to Starmer were his various attemps to define “woman”.

j watson
j watson
2 months ago
Reply to  A Robot

Says a Robot.
Saturday satire never better.

Doug Pingel
Doug Pingel
2 months ago
Reply to  A Robot

All he had to do was to ask his wife.

j watson
j watson
2 months ago

Article that said more about what’s gone on the last decade and a half than about Starmer. He’s too early to really judge other than in the usual partisan way (although the freebie glasses & clothes a mistake). He’s much less performative than we’ve been used to and in many ways that’s welcome but does leave a gap into which can pour a range of interpretations. We’ll have a better idea after the budget. It seems some re-writing of the Chancellor’s Fiscal rules to help enable more investment coming.
The Author did though make some decent practical suggestions. More often Unherd Authors high on the critique and low on the therapeutic.

Caradog Wiliams
Caradog Wiliams
2 months ago
Reply to  j watson

If you remember, Margaret Thatcher when first elected was criticised for not being able to appeal to people properly; she almost lacked personality, except for seeming to be bossy. This lack of charisma in front of the cameras is clear with Starmer. He needs a personality guru to help him on his way.
I am not comparing the ability of Thatcher and Starmer here but merely using the Comments to make a comment.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
10 days ago

Imagining Starmer exhibiting personality appals me. Just as seeing Nicola Sturgeon smile is a frightening experience.

AC Harper
AC Harper
2 months ago
Reply to  j watson

There are some people commenting here that are implacably socialist or capitalist.
Unfortunately the political parties have a tendency to swap their loyalties over time, sometimes smoothly, sometimes jerkily. In Britain we now have a Labour party in power that punishes the lower working class and sucks up to the rich. Meanwhile the Conservatives dithered away their governance by supporting the poorest at the expense of the businesses who generate the money to pay for the taxes.
I’d point out the working man support gradually aligning with the Republicans in the USA as the Democrats switch to supporting the new money elites.
Perhaps this is the source of populism? People soldier on in their ‘class’ only to realise that ‘their’ political party is wandering off elsewhere?

Hugh Bryant
Hugh Bryant
2 months ago
Reply to  j watson

I’m all for investment in infrastructure – and cancelling the Stonehenge tunnel is a good indicator of how hopless this government are going to be in that department – but when someone who doesn’t even have a laptop on her desk starts talking about ‘investing in data centres’ and other forms of activity about which bureaucrats have no knowledge or understanding I run for the hills.
If you want growth and prosperity then you need to create an economy, like that of the US, where small businesses can grow to become big ones. Can you name three members of the current Labour front bench who have any experience of that sector or even know someone who does?
Of course not.

Susan Grabston
Susan Grabston
2 months ago

This article is an incoherent mess.. Not the frist from this contributor. Please can an editor step forward in the Unherd team and support them to turn this jumble of ideas into a focused argument. .

Norfolk Sceptic
Norfolk Sceptic
2 months ago
Reply to  Susan Grabston

If we want to discuss the disappointing economic growth, the poor state of manufacturing needs to be mentioned, in detail, and Infrastructure projects. That requires basic Scientific and Engineering knowledge and practice, and also some knowledge of our Industry, industrial processes and needs: an Oxbridge History degree doesn’t deliver, whether it’s as a minister or a commentator. We don’t even have the Business sense to let the Engineers, those that know what Plans are for, and why they are critical to any project, do the Engineering, supply realistic figures to Economists and be held responsible for the overall project. The same is true with Medical projects. Why, oh why, do we have Generalists, with no relevant experience in the necessary disciplines, and following DEI, making random decisions that then cannot be adapted as circumstances change. We have people in charge that think they can dictate what people will buy, whether it’s the type of car, domestic heating, or leisure activity. And the public haven’t really noticed: it’s bizarre.

The most important aspect missing is that every discipline has their own specialists, and Central Control just DOESN’T work, especially when manned by very intelligent Arts, Humanities and Social Science graduates that mistake Intelligence for Knowledge and Experience.

The result is NET Zero policies, and continued failure. No-one in Britain, with the ability to stop this demise, has yet had the understanding that the current policies are driving the country to ruin, even though Germany is already providing the evidence.

Susan Grabston
Susan Grabston
2 months ago

Completely aligned. I suspect we might both respect Professor Michael J Kelly in.the engineering department at Cambridge. For the first time in my life I am afraid of a government. The decisions around net zero are dangerous, undermining economic performance, physical wellbeing (many more die of cold than heat) and food security The religiosity, unilateral policy, and failure to consider second/third order effects around.NZ was one of the reasons we left last year. When governments attack the lowest levels of Maslow’s hierarchy I think one might want to pause for thought, if not.get out of.Blighty as we did LOL.
.

Peter B
Peter B
2 months ago

You’re being too optimistic if you think that the top educational/institutional end of engineering hasn’t been captured by the EDI and Net Zero fads just like everywhere else. I can confirm these people are parrotting exactly the same nonsense as all our other institutions. Thye’re usually bureaucrats and politicians first and engineers a distant second once they get into those roles.

Anthony Roe
Anthony Roe
2 months ago

When immigrants and their descendants make up the majority of the working age population why on earth would they want to continue the present arrangement. If they have any sense they will prioritise their own children and the old white folks can go to the glue factory.

Arkadian Arkadian
Arkadian Arkadian
2 months ago

Talking about his penchant for designer clothing, does anyone actually think he looks… dapper? From what I see he could be well wearing a suit from Primark, rather than something that cost £10k+. Maybe he needs things tailored because he has a hunchback or something, but certainly he doesn’t remind me of Harvey Specter.
Or maybe he needs to shop better and get better/some value for money. Now, that’s a lesson for him….

Andrew Armitage
Andrew Armitage
2 months ago

Exactly, even if it were a pink Liberace suit or Elvis costume, at least there’d be some sign of a personality there. He craves approval too much

Arkadian Arkadian
Arkadian Arkadian
2 months ago

Oh dear, #StarmerLiberace is going to be the new trending hashtag. Impossible to unsee 😀

Malcolm Webb
Malcolm Webb
2 months ago

Starmer is destined to fail for sure but so would the author’s “ Carry on Borrowing and Soak the Rich” farce. Clearly a Corbynite in a poor disguise.

Brett H
Brett H
2 months ago
Reply to  Malcolm Webb

I don’t see this as a soak the rich story. How do you see it that way?

glyn harries
glyn harries
2 months ago
Reply to  Malcolm Webb

If you had actually read the article you would have seen the author coherently shows how chronic underinvestment has damaged the economy and while there may well be structural/managerial/education issues that also need remedying, until that under-investment is itself remedied, then the other issues can not be dealt with.

Andrew Armitage
Andrew Armitage
2 months ago

It’s too late this built up over decades even the best case turnaround would only show results in 20y.
Starmer himself is a personality-free zone. Even Corbyn had a taste for drain covers. At least something is better than nothing. Personality goes a long way. It can make the rivers of effluent not feel quite so bad. Starmer is a cardboard cutout lawyer.
Look forward to government control of every aspect of your life and your kids lives, while you get the pleasure of paying for it

David Hedley
David Hedley
2 months ago

I guess that Labour’s focus groups are giving a post-Covid message that they want more government intervention, a bigger State, more support, etc. Hence the adoption by Starmer of the model of a patrician politician, who will act in our best interests because he indubitably knows better than us what is good for us. This harks back to a pre-Blair Labour, possibly even more strongly than Corbyn, because Corbyn would never achieve real power. I also guess that the Civil Service is quite happy with a patrician PM, as in most cases, Starmer will nod through their strategies and master plans, with perhaps a Labour-hued cherry or two on top.
Time will tell, of course, but my strong sense is that this will be rejected in spades by an electorate that has tired in remarkably quick time of Starmer’s patronising and pompous tone, and outright hypocrisy on donations. Britain certainly needs strong political leadership, but this isn’t it.

Ann Young
Ann Young
2 months ago

Pratinav Anil
Absolutely spot on and he thinks we are all stupid enough to believe him.

Not all of us are and even the small percentage who voted Labour see through them now.

Andrew R
Andrew R
2 months ago

Nothing will change, other than even higher taxes and poorer services. Immigration will continue to be high, “irregular” migration will go unchallenged as will welfare dependency. Costs will keep on rising, productivity will remain low with SMEs pushed to the brink while the non productive economy will blossom.

If this isn’t bad enough, we’ll still have to listen to Starmer’s patronising, pompous monotone delivery about a difficult road ahead and tough choices for five whole years except for him and the completely useless political class that has ruined this country.

Alan Tonkyn
Alan Tonkyn
2 months ago

Whilst I agree with Anil’s characterisation of Starmer as a chameleon politician lacking a coherent vision, I find much of his arguments regarding the remedies for our grim economic situation spurious. In my layman’s view, higher ‘productivity’ – which he desires – involves more outputs per input, I.e.better efficiency in the use of resources. He seems to think that merely simply increasing inputs and outputs through more investment and more people via immigration, will make us a more prosperous and ‘productive’ country. To me, that seems to be confusing ‘productivity’ with mere ‘production’, and will lead to us having more debt to service and repay. Inefficiency in all areas of our national life, partly caused by an education system that fails to instil a respect for precision and rigour, lies at the heart of our lack of productivity, and can’t be wished away by simplistic remedies of the kind Anil advocates. We have a welfare state that allows too many potential workers to be economically inactive, and too many institutions that operate in a sloppy and inefficient way. Dealing with these deep-seated problems needs someone with greater gifts than Starmer and a populace willing to listen.

Bored Writer
Bored Writer
2 months ago

Fear not, Lammy is waiting in the wings!

Santiago Excilio
Santiago Excilio
2 months ago
Reply to  Bored Writer

Ah yes, the man who believes that adult human males can grow a cervix and that the blue cheese traditionally served after dinner with port is called Red Leicester. I suspect he’s going to find those foreign office embassy dinners quite challenging. . .

Phil Mac
Phil Mac
2 months ago

The guys got no flair, no charisma, no purpose. He’s just a boring, ordinary functionary who has blundered into being PM.
He’d never have got near it if he’d been in Blair’s Cabinet, it was only the fact it was Corbyn, then he could act for the maniac Rejoiners, combined with the absence of other talent around. I mean, Andy Burnham…….
To top it off his voice suits him perfectly.

Rob Britton
Rob Britton
2 months ago

Quite a lucid article until he started talking about wealth taxes!

Mark Phillips
Mark Phillips
2 months ago

That was worth reading for this; Labour would be saved from the unedifying spectacle of haggling over trifles like skint hippies in a Levantine flea market.

John Tyler
John Tyler
2 months ago

Lacking a coherent vision? I’m by no means convinced he has any vision other than of himself and his elite friends being always right. I suppose even that isn’t really a vision; more an arrogant belief in one’s moral superiority. Now that’s disproved there’s nothing left but holding on and spouting sound bites.

Alex Lekas
Alex Lekas
2 months ago

Starmer is open to criticism but the author’s ideas for moving the country forward are nothing more than the usual govt-knows-best syndrome. From “taxing the rich” to treating budgetary restraint as a crime against humanity, that mentality has created massive debts and accompanying issues across the West.
I’m sorry but Biden’s $369 billion climate package to reboot growth did no such thing. Personal credit card is at an all-time high, the price of housing here (like there) is out of reach for many, there is a wave of layoffs, even the Fed Chairman calls BS on the rosy jobs numbers that come out each month, and a huge chunk of those “new jobs created” are either in govt or part-time second jobs.
I agree that the Ukraine fixation is moronic but that leaves everything else in this author’s leftist prescription of treating other people’s money as never-ending. This reads like the sort of deep thought one might hear emanating in the faculty lounge from people who are never in any danger of living under their preferred policies.

Alexander van de Staan
Alexander van de Staan
2 months ago

The strained smile in the photo says it all ! Whether Starmer in UK or Harris in USA, these progressive technocrats are what T.S. Eliot referred to as ‘The Hollow Men’
  We are the hollow men
  We are the stuffed men
  Leaning together
  Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
  Our dried voices, when
  We whisper together
  Are quiet and meaningless
  As wind in dry grass
  Or rats’ feet over broken glass
  In our dry cellar
  Shape without form, shade without colour,
  Paralysed force, gesture without motion;
This is the way the West ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

A Robot
A Robot
2 months ago

OK, the population of France and UK are similar, but the relevant metric that should be the basis of the comparison is population density: France 122 per km; UK 286 per km. First, for a bigger country, you need more kilometres of autoroute and rail track to achieve a given level of connectivity. Secondly, housebuilding and infrastructure projects are all less troublesome in a low density country.

Mark epperson
Mark epperson
2 months ago

Technocrats, like all bureaucrats, never have a plan. They lack vision, leadership qualities, and are usually moral cowards. They are measurers and processesers and are beholden to their handlers, er donors, and will shift from strong position to strong position until they are finally told what to do. Look at the EU for a shining example of Techo meets Bureau crats and you have the most amoral, greedy, inept but usually eloquent leaders. Unfortunately, they are worthless. Sad.

mac mahmood
mac mahmood
2 months ago

To talk about productivity increase or the solution of the housing crisis is to lose sight of why he was brought in in the first place. It was not, for him to become the PM, a prospect that came into fruition by chance as the inevitable consequence of the Tories engaging in a process of self-immolation rather than by design, by those, who would not be criticised, but to purge the party of those who indulge in real or, mostly, imagined acts of antisemitism. He has done that and he can rest on his laurels.

Susan Grabston
Susan Grabston
2 months ago

Rosie Duffield appears to agree.

Christopher Chantrill
Christopher Chantrill
2 months ago

What? Sir Keir driving an SUV! But the climate! The planet!

Will K
Will K
2 months ago

Mr Starmer is the perfect equivalent of Mr Biden: a dull person elected by virtue of being ‘not the person demonized by the media’. The US voters (mostly) have now realised their error. The UK voters will also, in time.

Mark Splane
Mark Splane
2 months ago

Maybe my perceptions are biased (what with being a far right thug and all), but those fighting age men in the rubber dinghies don’t strike me as seamstresses and architects.

charlie martell
charlie martell
2 months ago

Two Tier is a fraud.

Put there by The Blob. When he has done what they want, The Blob will have him gone, suitably rewarded of course.

Who else would have got away with driving on the wrong side of the road, knocking a delivery guy over who required hospital treatment, leaving the scene of an accident before plod arrived, and then did not even go onto his scheduled meeting with his celebrity taylor?

He was obviously looking at his phone when he hit this cyclist. There is no other explanation. But, as a serving policeman told me, “distance and time, obscures the crime”. Starmer knew to get away out of it, and when he agreed to be interviewed the next week, the timescale of events would have been far greater to establish.

All brushed away. The Blob looking after their man.

glyn harries
glyn harries
2 months ago

Great stuff. Every serious economist knows you have to invest, across the board, directly and indirectly, to create and grow and even just maintain an economy. The question is what does Starmer and Reeves think they are doing. The “my mum saved her pennies’ schtick is embaressing.

William Cameron
William Cameron
2 months ago

I disagree with the Author on immigration is needed for growth.
This is not correct. Yes GDP will go up but GDP per capita goes down.
It is GDP per capita that matters.
Further the govt spends £17000 a human per annum. How much tax does an immigrant family pay ? It certainly is not £68,000. Every immigrant family or indeed sole immigrant makes the UK poorer as they cost the state far more than they pay in.

Peter B
Peter B
2 months ago

This article is all over the place. Some very good parts, yet others that strain credulity and the overall effect is disappointing.
This is one of the best comments I’ve read on Starmer and this new Labour government: “Lacking a vision for Britain, the “short-term pain” he promises with Calvinist glee can only be a prelude to long-term pain.”
But when I then read about how Starmer has no long-standing beliefs and is a fiendishly smart political opportunist, I start to suspect that the author is randomly throwing darts at the board and the earlier bullseye was a lucky throw.
Then we get to this: “self-respecting sensible centrists like Starmer”. Sensible: arguable. Centrist: the man’s a lifelong socialist. Self-respecting: funny way to describe a man who let’s another bloke buy his wife’s clothes (and also his own).
Finally, the idea that there’s some £260bn easy win on wealth taxes just waiting out there is almost infantile. Like people don’t vote with their feet and change their behaviour when this sort of thing happens. Another author too young to remember the 1970s when the top actors and singers all lived abroad.
It’s hard to convince oneself that the author is any more a serious person than “Starmer and his cronies” given the quality of his proposed solutions.

David GTD
David GTD
2 months ago

A 1% wealth tax on wealth above 1 million (min 50k over 5 years) would hit an enormous number of people and, more importantly, an enormous number of people who voted for them. Some of these are urban bourgeois Bolsheviks and some of them were giving Labour a chance after the Tory shambles. The Labour government might get away with it if they spend the money well and the UK markedly improves during its tenure but such a prospect is very poor given Labour’s lack of real strategy and direction. The chances are that this would kill off Labour at the next election and they know it. Even the urban luvvies will ditch them once they realise that their luxurious sanctimony is actually costing them cold cash.

charlie martell
charlie martell
2 months ago

Two Tier is a fraud. Put there by a protective Blob, who will remove him when they are done with him.

On his accident. It is worth saying that the only explanation for crashing into a cyclist, while being on the wrong side of the road, and in broad daylight, is that he was using his phone while he was driving. There can be no other possible reason .

But he knew when to flee. As a policeman friend of mine told me at the time, “Distance and time, obscure the crime”. Two Tier knew that when he was eventually interviewed, the next week, the timeline of events would be very hard to establish. Very easy if he had waited for the police at the time.

But would plod have bothered looking? Doubtful. All swept away. The Blob looking after their man.

Christopher Barclay
Christopher Barclay
2 months ago

‘A technocrat without a plan’ written by an academic without a plan except for a vague imitation of the French.

Mike Carr
Mike Carr
2 months ago

Would you have confidence in someone who was so desperate to provide comfort for his son to revise for his exams that he needs to be subbed £20-40k but would refuse to make any effort to be subbed to provide for his sons medical welfare but just wait in a variety of queues to receive treatment at the hands of the NHS. Disingenuous or truth? You choose. In my view this bloke is someone with no moral compass.

Andrew Fisher
Andrew Fisher
2 months ago

There are a few good points here but overall this is a preposterous leftist rant, apparently in favour of socialism, which has never worked anywhere. Investment is a word which is splurged around almost indiscriminately to mean any state spending whatever. Even France has woken up to the fact that this isn’t an option forever. And apparently we will have the largest population in Europe, mostly of low skilled migrants who are certainly not going to add much to productivity.

We have historically high taxes not low, the idea that we just add another tax the most some of the most productive people in our society, is just schoolboy economics. A wealth tax on over million pounds? That would probably cause a collapse of the housing market. Is China doing this by the way, or Singapore?

Walter Marvell
Walter Marvell
2 months ago

Dear God! How wrong can you be! Starmer whispered his beliefs in the General Election No Policy Sting but they are already plain to see. He is NOT a pragmatic Blair/Cameron style managerial technocrat! He is a Big Active Socialist. And he is an avowed knee bending Progressive. He is therefore a proud ideologue, a man guided by these credos.

Walter Marvell
Walter Marvell
2 months ago

Set aside the wealth tax and the blank on the ideological underpinnings of divisive Starmerism, I enjoyed some cute phrases (Islingtonian Europeanism) and a generally fun duffing up of a ludicrous priggish hypocrite who will never secure any popular support on his own account now the Fake Tories are torched.

Lancashire Lad
Lancashire Lad
2 months ago

There’s a really searching piece waiting to be written about Keir Starmer, one that will cut through all the noise, the wind and the feeble fury that he seems to epitomise. This isn’t it.
Instead, we have a patchwork quilt of a piece, sewn together with a misjudged sophistry that might go down well in certain circles but which, in my opinion, does a disservice to the seriousness of the downward spiral the UK finds itself in. By the UK, i mean the millions of good people who find their lives being blighted by the utter failure of our political class to address their concerns, to engage their energy or to enthuse their outlook.
Less than three months into a new parliament, the next five years stretch out before us with a lame duck PM and a government machine that resembles one of those “British Leyland” cars we used to produce in the 1970s that started to fall apart as soon as it left the production line.
We need a much more thorough analysis of how we arrived at such an impasse. The author is an academic historian and has written books on post-colonial India that seem to have gone down well, but his finger – rather than being on the UK pulse – has simply been pointed into the air. I hope at least Comments can touch the breeze.

Brett H
Brett H
2 months ago
Reply to  Lancashire Lad

Maybe I was hypnotised by the shocking statistics, but I thought was was a very good article. What is it that disappointed you?

j watson
j watson
2 months ago
Reply to  Brett H

Yes I thought that too. The summary of the difference in investment, and the stark comparison on housing units, explained much.
The problem I suspect was that the Author critque’d the Right wing economic philosophy of the last 14 years as much as he did Starmer and for some that will have jarred a little.

Hugh Bryant
Hugh Bryant
2 months ago
Reply to  j watson

But you all miss the central point: the middle class in Britain – and particularly the state sector middle class – consumes massively more than it produces. Labour can’t change that without alienating its own voters. Hence the waffle and dithering.

j watson
j watson
2 months ago
Reply to  Hugh Bryant

Depends how you measure ‘produces’ HB – your thoughts on what teachers, doctors, nurses, soldiers and police officers produce? I suspect you have a cranky old man view of some bureaucrats and get carried away with who you then lump together.
And then there’s the ever growing number of pensioners, many middle class, and clearly no longer at a productive stage of life in the manner I assume you mean. Your Policy answer?

Andrew R
Andrew R
2 months ago
Reply to  j watson

Perhaps you would like to explain how a policy wonk with a degree in politics, earning £60k in an NGO partly funded by the taxpayer is driving the economy.

Do you think lobbying the government for more cash while submitting papers to parliamentary select committees on “Whiteness” and “Systemic Racism” is adding to GDP?

j watson
j watson
2 months ago
Reply to  Andrew R

Without the details impossible to respond isn’t it AR. You set it up like that rather than give an actual example. But thinking this sort of Govt sponsored work is non-value adding does not translate then to whole state sector does it. It’s a silly contention if that’s what you meant it to do. It’s a fairly marginal issue at best… in the real world away from conspiratorial right wing twaddle.

Andrew R
Andrew R
2 months ago
Reply to  j watson

You don’t have an argument so it’s back to fallacy and projection.

“It’s a fairly marginal issue at best… in the real world away from conspiratorial right wing twaddle”.

Yet it exists and as far as Starmer’s tough choices go it’s easy win to stop funding this nonsense and have universities provide courses that are of actual value.

The conspiratorial “twaddle” is the loony left’s belief in laughably absurd constructs such as Post-modernism and Critical Theory. “Whiteness”, Lol.

Hugh Bryant
Hugh Bryant
2 months ago
Reply to  j watson

It’s very simple. Add up how much tax you’ve paid and then ask yourself: is that really enough to cover the primary, secondary and tertiary education, the life-long free health care, the twenty to thirty years of state pension, the inevitable cancer or heart disease treatment, the social care when you get dementia …? What about the £ million or so in unearned property wealth you think you’re entitled to as well?

It isn’t, is it? But no worries? The ‘v Rich’ (IE: people who are even richer than you) can pick up the tab, eh?

Well no, actually – it’s people who are poorer than you who are going to get the bill because the government works for you, not them.

michael harris
michael harris
2 months ago
Reply to  Hugh Bryant

Nobody will get the bill-yet. It will be all be borrowed until the borrowing has to stop. Then the axe will fall on many necks. Who, what few, will avoid the blade? The ruthless, the criminal and many of the perpetrators of the inevitable ruin.

j watson
j watson
2 months ago
Reply to  Hugh Bryant

No v rich person who pays more tax would have that wealth without a society with doctors, nurses, police officers, teachers. soldiers etc. They’d just be anarchy and society would breakdown. You argument has a big infantile element.
As regards property wealth – as said before we aren’t million miles apart on the inequality asset focused wealth drives and perpetuates albeit you tend to focus more on middle class owners of a house that has accumulated value than the much richer asset accumulators. Interested in your practical policy response, esp for those with a £1m or so tied up in their home etc? Inheritance tax uplift? Just want to check how much you’ve really thought about it. We may be quite close.

Hugh Bryant
Hugh Bryant
2 months ago
Reply to  j watson

It’s pretty obvious really. A slow but steady increase in council tax on the bigger houses in the richer areas, but with a discount for families with kids in full time education – and a concomitant reduction in the over-taxation and over-regulation of productive activity.
Our economy is failing because of bad incentives created by successive governments (particularly New Labour). The resulting asset bubbles drive investment away from where it is needed in entrepreneurial activity.
The problem with your scapegoating of the ‘v. Rich’ (sic) is that it is the behaviour and attitudes of the mass of the population, and particularly the state dependency of the middle class which we can no longer afford, that need to change. Punishing the rich may make you feel good, but all it will do is drive away capital and destroy good incentives.

j watson
j watson
2 months ago
Reply to  Hugh Bryant

Agree on Council Tax.
Disagree on alot else, but will stick with the positive here.

Hugh Bryant
Hugh Bryant
2 months ago
Reply to  j watson

Disagree on alot else, but can’t explain why …will stick with the positive here.

Andrew F
Andrew F
2 months ago
Reply to  j watson

Maybe you should read prof Darzi report about NHS.
19% more staff than in 2019 but number of procedures down by 12%.
So basically 30% decline in productivity per employee.
But junior doctors get 22% pay rise.
No private business would respond that way to such terrible productivity drop.
Maybe police stop chasing non crime hate incidents and deal with real crime?
I happen to know HR director of London NHS Trust.
When mentioning terrible process failures in his NHS trust based on my experience of having knee replacement his excuse was “not enough staff”.
I said how do you know?
Because we have 15% vacancy level.
When asked “did you benchmark your staff level and outcomes against other organisations in uk and Europe?” He said no.
Why do we see so many obese nurses?
Most of them can barely walk, so I doubt they do much work.
So I am sorry but it is perfectly reasonable to question productivity of public sector employees.

j watson
j watson
2 months ago
Reply to  Andrew F

Obviously you didn’t actually read it AF as he explained why the productivity drop might be which you fail to mention. Lack of investment in capital and equipment being a big one. Bit like giving the Army more troops but cutting their equipment.
Junior doctors 22% was spread over a period and still doesn’t get them back to real income of 2010. Political decision though to get this sorted as in prior year 32 working days lost due to strikes – that’s a month and a half of operating. Massive productivity gain in just eliminating that loss.
I’d be careful about listening too much to a HR director. In another missive you’ll probably be slagging them for being too interested in EDI. The waits for joint replacement risen because insufficient theatre and bed capacity than staff, although national shortages do exist in specific areas such as anaesthesia and theatre nursing, limiting the ability to use physical assets more outside usual hours. The demand of course for joint replacement increasing with aging population too.
Questions on productivity are totally legit and it has to rise to meet demands of an aging population. Simplistic beliefs about it though don’t help much.

Hugh Bryant
Hugh Bryant
2 months ago
Reply to  j watson

still doesn’t get them back to real income of 2010
Sorry, but no-one can go back to what they got in 2010 because that was an unsustainable bubble paid for by the debt and money-printing policies of Gordon Brown. The potential for that kind of finagling no longer exists.

j watson
j watson
2 months ago
Reply to  Hugh Bryant

Which is probably why it hasn’t gone back to that real wage rate, but merely reduced the gap and released a month and half of productive activity in the process. Not an easy decision I’m sure, but a decision was made

John Ramsden
John Ramsden
2 months ago
Reply to  Brett H

A few good points were here and there, among the exuberant verbosity as Disraeli might have put it. What made me laugh was the reference to a “one off” wealth tax. Wasn’t income tax once a “one off” tax to help pay for the Napoleonic Wars? In practice there is no such thing, and a 1% per annum wealth tax would soon mean no millionaire suckers left resident in the UK to extort it from.

Susie Bell
Susie Bell
2 months ago
Reply to  John Ramsden

True, how quickly would 1% become 2%? Chancellors of the future would be unable to resist visiting the magic money tree.

glyn harries
glyn harries
2 months ago
Reply to  John Ramsden

Not true. Those with significant wealth can easily afford a 1 or even 2% additional tax and turns out most support that
https://patrioticmillionaires.uk/latest-news/report-out-of-touch-when-it-comes-to-taxing-extreme-wealth-the-house-of-commons-flags-behind-even-the-richest-in-the-country

Peter B
Peter B
2 months ago
Reply to  glyn harries

Indeed they *could* afford it. But they almost certainly *won’t* pay it. There’s plenty of experience worlwide – and including in the UK in the 60s and 70s – about what happens when you raise taxes too high. Talent – and wealth – leaves the country.

Robert Lloyd
Robert Lloyd
2 months ago
Reply to  Brett H

Although the article presents a fair analysis of Starmer’s character there were two disappointing aspects to the article. Firstly, it was written in an overwordy style, shall we say a periphrastic manner? Extispicy indeed! This style is an affectation that attempts to convey deep intellectual prowess, often not justified by the ideas contained within the wordiness. Secondly, the article promotes an old fashioned tax-and-spend approach to the economy. This sub-Keynesian ideal has always failed in the past, most spectacularly when applied by Dennis Healey. This thinking usually is diagnostic of an often irrational hatred of the aspirant middle classes.

Pamela Booker
Pamela Booker
2 months ago
Reply to  Brett H

Going on about how well France was doing in building homes and infrastructure, the author failed to mention the fact that France has a much larger landmass than GB and is less populated.

Caradog Wiliams
Caradog Wiliams
2 months ago
Reply to  Lancashire Lad

How many PMs since the war have NOT been lame ducks. Personality over ability has usually won the day. People here will gasp, “Thatcher” but are there any more?

Andrew Armitage
Andrew Armitage
2 months ago

Like him or not, luck or not , reality or not, surely Blair had a similar impact At his election there was a genuine feeling of positive change.
This government has the feeling of trying to recover a past which those who remember it can definitely say we do not want to revive

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
2 months ago
Reply to  Lancashire Lad

Nice comments and very well written. Maybe U could write an article about PM Freebie