Starmer needs a rethink, not a relaunch

It doesn’t take a huge stretch of the imagination to picture a communist bureaucrat issuing a decree: “Comrades, I can announce today that four years from now 92 per cent of routine operations will be carried out within our new national target of just four and a half months – realising a goal that has eluded us for almost a decade.”

Keir Starmer will deploy an almost identical phrase tomorrow, probably without the opening word, when he sets out his government’s renewed missions in a major speech.

Downing Street is adamant that the speech doesn’t constitute a reset, or even a relaunch, but there’s no getting away from the fact that the government is struggling to communicate with the public.

Starmer’s personal poll ratings are on the floor and the government as a whole appears to have lost huge amounts of the support that propelled it into office. Their summer victory seems to have been delivered with a shrug rather than a cheer.

So, onwards, to tomorrow’s big speech.

The NHS waiting times pledge is absolutely central to the government’s desire to show progress, though in truth the fact that the PM is even making it serves to remind us of the inherent flaws in a centralised, nationalised, politicised and (therefore) demoralised healthcare system. Medics are already warning that if the government’s focus (and money) goes on elective treatment waiting lists then A&Es across the country will “become warzones.”

It seems Britain can’t manage both.

Perhaps it’s best to move on to another of the PM’s missions; the pledge to deliver the highest rate of economic growth in the G7, which is being relaunched (sorry, recalibrated) as a promise to improve living standards.

Voters could be forgiven for thinking this was a given, but here Labour encounters the classic short-term/long-term conundrum that faces all governments.

A sympathetic reading of Starmer’s agenda might see signs of economic growth as a potential future win, but when it comes to the here and now we’re mostly talking about slumps in consumer spending and a business community spooked by hikes to direct and indirect costs – with inevitable consequences for pay, hiring and growth.

In the end, Starmer can offer as many pledges and make as many speeches as he likes, but his government needs more than a relaunch; it needs a rethink.