The Confidence Trick

Labour is doing hard things in government. But they are not speaking about this with confidence. They don't have to sound like it's all such a slog!

(Hello! It’s me! I have changed the name of this to reflect both my business (also called Political Human) and to better reflect the fact that this doesn’t just talk about the Labour Party’s least understood, vaguest and most poorly represented faction but politics much more widely!)

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This edition of the newsletter was originally planned for the weekend as a response to the ‘reset/not a reset’ (Look, let’s be honest. It would not have been called a reset by the press if things were going well). Then my computer went kablooie and, well, the rest is history.

But while I do often react to the news or political events of the week, I try to do so with a broader scope. And I think most of what I was going to say is still relevant so this is the same basic thoughts (sadly whatever I wrote then is lost forever) but without the immediacy of that news hook.

The speech itself was - as Labour has argued - a continuation of the missions their mission-led government is shaping itself around. On the whole, I think the narrower targets it set out to demonstrate progress on those missions work and make sense for a government that believes that delivery and proving delivery is the right answer to populism - a position I largely agree with.

Where my problem lies with Labour has been in the communications overall. George Eaton had a good piece in the New Statesman yesterday asking “Who are Starmer’s people?”. I.E. Who are the people Labour believes it has been elected to prioritise and what do they believe they are doing for them?

Now, of course, some in Labour will try to argue that ‘country first, party second’ means that Labour is there to be ‘for’ the whole of the country. But, I’m sorry, that’s a cop-out. To govern is to choose. To govern in straightened times is to make a lot of choices. And if “the language of priorities is the religion of Socialism” then we have to not simply understand who are their people but also how they tell a clear story about how they are prioritising them.

When I am asked how I think it’s going for Labour, I always say two things.

Firstly, that I think the policies set out in the King’s Speech were great. That when it comes to the legislative programme, I thought they had an excellent start.

I can say the same about the recent speech too. Setting yourself stretching and ambitious but achievable targets is an essential part of demonstrable leadership. I think the targets are largely the right priorities and while they cannot and will not cover everything the government is going to do, I do they they set a decent agenda for change.

But I also say that I think the communications have been bad. That there isn’t a narrative that sits behind that prioritisation that people can easily understand and see not just what this government thinks it is doing but why it thinks that and what it thinks it is doing it for.

The journalist Steve Richards speaks often on his podcast about the need for leaders to be “political teachers” and this is what is lacking from Starmer’s government. I think we’re saying the same thing, but I want to unpack a little bit about what being a political teacher means and how Labour can learn to do this vital skill.

I think it comes down to two things. Confidence and enjoyment.