The Labour leader must be clear about how he’ll succeed where Tories have failed – rehashing Blair’s strategies isn’t enough
The future direction of UK plc now looks more likely to come from the Starmer and Reeves emporium than the woeful management of the present Are You Being (Under) Served? government. In the mayhem of 2022, the Tories forfeited their claim to be the natural managers of the UK economy. Opportunity knocks for the opposition to fill that gap.
Attacking the government’s record here is straightforward: the economy has had skimpy growth for most of its 12 years in power (on a per-person basis, the economy has grown just 7% in real terms since the financial crash of 2007-08). Perhaps more concerning for any potential replacement, productivity has lagged behind competitors. Voters feel the result in their real-terms household incomes, and lower earners now find basics, let alone treats, less affordable. So “the Tories tanked the economy” is a line with a lot of truth to it. Planning to get the economy upright again is a more daunting task. That will need to change in 2023 as voters will want to know more about Labour’s intended direction of travel.
Anne McElvoy is senior editor at the Economist
