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What do you do in a crisis? In politics this week, it seems that if you have been PM, are PM, or fancy being PM one day, then you pen an essay.
We’ve now had treatises from Labour’s most electorally successful PM (Blair), its current one (Starmer), and PM hopefuls (Burnham, Streeting and Kemi Badenoch), all laying out why their ideas are the right ones for the nation and why the others, well, aren’t.
Blair set this all in motion, saying “the government’s principal problem” is not that it lacks a “charismatic leader”, but that Starmer lacks “an idea, a project, a governing purpose”. He said policies that had gotten in the way of economic growth - like workers’ rights, net zero, the increase in employers’ National Insurance contributions - should be ditched. Blair’s essay is 5,600 words long.
Starmer struck back. He admitted “mistakes” over the winter fuel payment and being “too negative” at the start, but said he had inherited a country in “a very poor place” after a decade of austerity. He said he was delivering growth, falling NHS waiting lists and falling net migration. His big idea, to defeat populism, is that his government is all about giving people back “dignity” so they don’t feel “ignored”. Starmer’s essay is nearly 3,000 words.
Burnham’s essay (1,500 words) said “40 years of neoliberalism” and falling living standards were to blame, and that he’d not be “leaving things to the market”. Streeting’s (840 words) said “inequality” was the root of voters’ anger and Labour needed to combine “dynamism with fairness”. Badenoch (1,400 words), addressing “Dear Tony”, said “only the Conservative Party is prepared to accept difficult decisions must be made”.
It might seem an unusual spate of interventions in a social media age. But politicians rarely want to cede the limelight to their rivals. And, of course, they want to be seen as serious figures, with serious thoughts for serious times.
The essential: A spate of essays have laid out what’s wrong with the country and what to do about it, with contributions from politicians past and present. Take your pick.
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