There could be a general election much earlier than you think

Telegraph

3 days ago

For a 24-year-old Tory, then working at a website called ConservativeHome, I was unreasonably happy the morning after last year's general election. I'm not a sadomasochist. 121 MPs was far more than I'd dare hope for; as the exit poll came through, I cheered that I still had a job. Among the many that lost their seats were plenty of my party's most useless MPs, up to and including one Liz Truss.
But the number one reason for me to be cheerful, as Keir Starmer waved outside Number 10, landslide majority at his back, was I knew that this new Labour Government from its very first day was cooked.
For those unfamiliar with it, 'cooked' is a Generation Z expression, meaning being exhausted or overwhelmed. It can also refer to being high on marijuana, but I don't think that applies here, except perhaps to explain how Ed Miliband generates his energy policies.
Why was I convinced, at the point of my opponents' ultimate triumph, that they were already as good as plucked, stuffed, and roasting in the oven? Disdain, perhaps. Keir Starmer always struck me as little more than a late middle-aged man who quite wanted to be Prime Minister but didn't really know why. But the most obvious cause was the disconnect between the mandate the Government had received, the challenges it faced, and the patience of its new MPs.
Ignore the 411 seats – an anomaly of the sort first-past-the-post throws out for fun. The real stat that had my eyebrows raised was the share of the vote Labour had received: 33.7 per cent. Not only was it far below what the opinion polls had predicted – little changed from Jeremy Corbyn's glorious 2019 defeat – but it was the lowest share of the vote for any majority Government ever.
For a Government coming to power promising no plan more than an oblique promise of 'change', things were likely to turn sour quickly. That was especially the case for one confronting the same structural challenges – stagnation, a broken health service, and soaring immigration – that had riven the Tories and on which voters expected swift action. So it has proved.
The current stand-off between Starmer and his backbenchers over welfare cuts is emblematic of this. More than 120 Labour MPs have now signed an amendment that would torpedo the Government's plans to make it harder to claim personal independent payments. The cuts would save a paltry £5 billion – a dust speck compared to an overall welfare budget of £313 billion. But it is too much for more than a quarter of Starmer's statist MPs.
For a Government with a majority larger than any Margaret Thatcher ever enjoyed to be contemplating defeat on a signature piece of legislation within its first year is extraordinary. If the Prime Minister U-turns on this, as he has over the two-child benefit cap and on winter fuel payments, it will be a humiliating admission that his MPs will never will allow him to cut spending. Not only will the markets take fright; his authority would be shot. Like Theresa May during the Brexit wars, he would be in office but not in power.
Starmer could can the legislation or chuck Rachel Reeves or Morgan McSweeney to the backbench wolves, falling back on the traditional excuse of all embattled monarchs: 'I was led astray by evil advice'. But paying the Danegeld has never been known to get rid of the Dane. No successor could be expected to do much better.
They are trapped between a political rock and a fiscal hard place: between legions of Labour MPs who entered politics to do anything but vote through Austerity 2.0, and a bloated state limping ever close to bankruptcy as the population ages, growth remains anaemic, and the international scene continues to darken.
With Labour MPs like this, how could we ever afford the £30-40 billion that Starmer's new 5 per cent of GDP defence pledge requires? It is a nonsense. So is this Government. Not even one year in, and it is extinct. With four more years to run down, it is bereft of any positive agenda, staggering from crisis to crises and rebellion to rebellion.
For Labour MPs, wasting the next four years of their lives, it is a humiliation. But for the country they are failing to lead, it is a disaster. I could say I told you so. But our plight is far too dire. Labour's first year has been miserable. But things can only get worse.