What should Keir say?
“The Speech of his life”.
As far as I am concerned, the de facto cancellation of traditional party conference season last year is one of the few unalloyed goods to emerge from the Covid-19 pandemic. Alas, all good things must pass and in less than three weeks, the Labour Party will gather in Brighton for a ‘normal’ face-to-face conference. According to the party’s official website, this will involve “inspiring speeches, invaluable training and an events timetable that makes the most of every minute”. To which I can only say: whoever spun that with a straight face should be immediately seconded to the party’s press operation.
Unfortunately, ‘making the most of every minute’ is not a description that could be applied to Keir Starmer’s leadership of the Labour Party so far this year. And on that account, he is the one man who really is in need of an inspiring speech in Brighton. Or as the Guardian put it (in an article ‘helpfully’ entitled ‘No strategy, programme or project: Labour divided ahead of conference’) both “fans and detractors alike agree it will have to be the speech of his life”.
To be honest, I would not go quite that far; I remain — I think — on the more sanguine side of the debate when it comes to assessing Labour’s prospects under Starmer. For all that the Government — and the Prime Minister especially — have political attributes routinely underestimated by progressives, what they are not is a Government with a firm or competent grip on the state tiller. As such, Labour will continue to be presented with a fairly steady stream of minor political firestorms that, on occasion, will present it with definitional messaging opportunities (as has arguably happened this week). More importantly, as I argued at a frankly embarrassing length in my last missive, the fact remains that nobody normal, in terms of levels of political engagement, is really likely to pay much attention to anything Keir Starmer says until the general election itself. In this sense the 2017 general election campaign presents an extreme example of a fairly universal truth about opposition leaders facing the public for the first time: for most of the country it is a political first date and thus a newish opposition leader will generally get a hearing. Add to that the increasing number of people who report leaving their decision until the latter stages of campaigns and you have the recipe — or at least some of the main ingredients — for contemporary campaign volatility. Labour insiders looking to console themselves about poor favourability ratings should remember this. For with volatility will come opportunity (though — sorry Ed! — it can of course break both ways).
That said, as Stephen Bush regularly sets out, just because the mid-cycle fads and obsessions of the hyper-engaged political world often prove ephemeral when the election looms into view does not also mean they cannot derail or fundamentally damage a politician’s standing. And make no mistake: Keir Starmer’s standing, in this world of “readers and writers of current affairs magazines and opinion columns, viewers of 24-hour news channels, participants in political Twitter, and members of political parties” is not high. To be clear, neither is Boris Johnson’s in this world so, contra those briefing the Guardian, this does not have to be conference speech of his life in the sense that winning is ultimately not predicated upon the success of this speech or even a politician’s standing in this ‘world’. However, there can be no argument against the idea that a great conference speech would do more than almost anything — more even, I suspect, than the Batley and Spen by-election victory — to becalm both the Labour Party faithful and the sharpening commentariat knives. That calm would buy Starmer the most precious commodity of all for a short-staffed, overworked, underpowered, exposure-lacking opposition: time. So, with such a valuable prize on offer, what should Keir say?
This article sets out in a hopefully constructive manner the bare bones of a central argument for his conference speech. I will then try to deconstruct it a little bit in order to make a few — occasionally serious, occasionally gratuitous — points about the tone that should accompany it, the tactics that should sit behind it, and a policy idea or two that might underline the argument in substance.
Whose side are you on?
The first task Starmer’s speechwriting team face is the most basic and important: selecting the ‘topic’. By ‘topic’ I do not mean a broad theme, like ‘the economy’ or ‘climate change’ — that is how Starmer’s speeches appear to have been intellectually organised so far, with the effect that they tend towards a brain-dump of reasonable points that, whilst serviceable enough, do not really leave the audience with any lasting sense of a political story. Rather the ‘topic’, as Philip Collins sets out in his highly recommended Art of Speeches and Presentations (or at least I think he does — that book, along with all my books, currently resides in storage!) is a single organising argument around which an entire speech should orbit. In fact, memorably Collins suggests that the topic should fit onto a single post-it note and even that every sentence in a slightly longer, A4 length summary should not divert from the argument contained on said post-it note. For any Labour speechwriter reading this: trust me, this is definitely good practice.
I have very loosely followed that process here, both in terms of the post-it and A4-ish length summary. Loosely, in part because I also want to throw in a few ‘diverting’ lines just to make some wider points about the state of the party underneath! But also because a conference speech is by its length and nature a little more expansive than most political speeches. Even a really good and focused one will usually find itself indulging in a few meandering tributaries, not least to avoid a ‘ctrl F’ media story if you fail to mention a politically important subject, as Ed Miliband did with the deficit in 2014. Nevertheless, the point holds that even these digressions should try to connect back to the main river, which is the topic. Anyway…
Topic: Labour under my leadership will focus on delivering greater levels of opportunity and security for working class people and their families (we will be better at this task than the Conservative Government).
The first thing to say here is that the bracketed bit is so structural to all conference, nay all Labour, speeches that I am going to allow myself to leave it off my post-it note!
The second is to admit, as the emphasis on class underscores, that strategically this represents an attempt to contest the monomaniacal focus — monomaniacal even beyond what the genuinely important sociology deserves — of the commentariat on how Labour’s collapse in so-called ‘red wall’ seats means it is no longer a legitimate political vehicle for working people. To be clear, I remain very much of the view that the ‘red wall’ issue is just one essay question amongst many Starmer must answer. Yet it is definitely the only one of those questions the commentariat in England seem to care about — you don’t see too many op-eds here about the much more serious Scotland question — and this is certainly a speech that must land well with that audience. Moreover, even in its due, slightly diminished place, the need for Labour to somewhat turn the tide in those seats remains one of the strategic certainties of the next election; a challenge central to just about any plausible winning electoral coalition Labour strategists could imagine. So, all things considered, he may as well take it on, especially as I believe he has a potentially powerful story to tell.
All that said, perhaps the most important point I want to make about this topic concerns the words “opportunity” and “security”. For there is nothing would-be Labour intellectuals love more than a seminar or essay about which abstract noun the party should be for, so please, let me disavow such beard-scratching now: this should not be that kind of speech. Those words are in the topic purely because you have to give people something and words on a post-it note are a scarce commodity! Oh ok, there is a bit more artifice to it than that: they also represent an attempt to align what you might glibly call the aspirational ‘Philip Gould’ working class (opportunity) alongside the just about managing ‘Claire Ainsley’ working class (security) — more on this later. But the important bit, the central strategic impulse which sits behind this topic, is to set out who the Labour Party is for, not what.
This is important because an unclear answer to the ‘whose side are you on’ question is in my opinion the main thing holding back Labour’s narrative development, not — as Starmer is more often told by the politically engaged world — “what do you stand for”? Even more so, I expect, if we are locating this speech within the ‘red wall’ question. In fact, whilst we are here, the “whose side are you on” question pretty much completely explains the Prime Minister’s appeal to those areas: in the biggest democratic exercise in recent memory, he was on most of theirs, a fact that affords him deep reservoirs of political capital beyond Brexit itself. Yet I think we can push this argument even further; I think this inability to give the ‘who’ question primacy over the ‘what’ is also perhaps the greatest gap — a crowded field if ever there was one — in the Labour Party’s understanding of the nature of contemporary British politics. At an intellectual level, I feel it betrays a misunderstanding of the character of British politics, which has typically been more rooted in competing class interests than a philosophical contest of ideas. I also think it is, in a logical sense, a more basic question — answer the ‘who’ premise and the ‘what’ premise should fall more easily into place. But most importantly of all it betrays a misunderstanding of how you tell political stories — the absolute alpha task of being Leader of the Opposition. Therefore, if Keir Starmer’s team were to read this rant and only absorb one thing it should be this: every idea, every animating impulse they might want to express, is better told when humanised through characters that people can understand and relate towards. That is not just true about politics by the way, it is true about all the great story-telling arts. So, if you want to talk about the end of neoliberalism, then don’t talk about policies or abstractions, describe how these ideas play out in peoples’ lives. Want to tell us about the education system? Tell us about children, teachers and parents. And if you want to define what your political projects stands for, then first tell us who it stands for.
The ‘Overworking’ Class
I will now summarise what I think Starmer should say in a little more detail to express that topic, along with some numbered annotations that unpack the reasons why.
Summary:
This country is great: a world leader in culture, sport, enterprise and innovation.(1) Since we last met, scientists in this country have created a vaccine that will save millions of lives during this pandemic, as well as allowing us to get closer to the free and normal life we all crave. (2) We have much to be proud about, but we can be better. Our potential as a country is held back by the way we hold back the potential of working class people and their families. In the media, in politics, in business, in culture, even sometimes in sport, working class people do not get a fair crack of the whip compared to people from more privileged backgrounds. This has always been a problem, but in recent years it has got worse. For working class people, opportunities to get on are harder and harder to come by. (3)
Worse still, for many working class families, life is becoming more and more insecure. By insecure, I mean a feeling of deep and worrying uncertainty about what the future holds; a lack of confidence which means you cannot enjoy life fully in the present. This is a feeling we may all now be able to recognise, after what we went through in March last year. All of a sudden everything — our work, our health, our relationships with friends and family — suddenly felt so fragile and under threat. (4) However, for many working class people and their families this is their life all the time: those feelings never go away. This is unfair because, if anything, they are working harder and harder just to stand still. It is our economy and society that lets them down — we don’t build enough affordable housing, we don’t provide enough training opportunities to get on, we don’t create enough jobs that give them the time, money and security to enjoy family life. In short, there is an ‘overworking class’ of cleaners, shop workers, bar tenders, teaching assistants, cooks, carers, drivers, warehouse workers and tradespeople that deserve more from this country and my leadership of the Labour Party will be focused on delivering for them (5).
Some people may expect a Labour leader to say this. Others may say Labour has no right to say it; that the party must earn the trust of working class people again. I would agree trust in politics must be earned, but I am not interested in arguments about the Labour Party past or present. For me this is more personal. (6). My father was a tool-maker; my mother a nurse. For many years my mother was deeply ill and growing up I saw my father work every hour in the day — one shift at work, a ‘second shift’ at home caring for my mother. He did this for two simple reasons, both rooted in family. One, so that me and my siblings could get on. Two, to make sure that my mother suffered less and could endure her illness with dignity. I would like to think I have kept to those values throughout my life. Certainly, I have worked hard to get where I am today — I am proud of my career as a barrister defending workers and activists, and proud of serving my country as its Director of Public Prosecutions (7). Yet the Britain I grew up in has gone (8). Many things have got better, but there are many millions more people like my father, putting in a ‘second shift’ of care alongside work — life has got tougher for them. Moreover, it is undoubtedly harder for people from my background to get on and become whatever they want to be — whether that is a lawyer, a politician, or simply any job that allows them to feel secure and spend time with their family. That is why I say this is personal: kids from my background no longer have the chances I had and families like mine now have it even tougher (9).
I am optimistic we can change this. In fact, strangely, I think this awful pandemic gives us an opportunity to reconsider so many things about how we live that can make this country even better. Take the opportunity to work from home, for those who can. For millions, this has been an opportunity to reconnect with their communities, to spend more time with their family, to have a better balance between work and life. And at no great cost for economic competitiveness or productivity. It is true that this, for the most part, has benefitted more privileged workers — many working class people cannot work from home. But instead of asking how we can create a world where all workers enjoy a better balance between life and work, the Tories oppose it for everyone (10).
That is why I believe Labour under my leadership will be better at delivering greater levels of opportunity and security for working class people and their families. They have not learned any of the great lessons of the pandemic. They do not understand that people — especially working class people — want the security to enjoy a better balance between life and work; you can see that in how they oppose working from home. They do not understand — as the pandemic has shown — that we need to come together as a nation to solve our biggest challenges; individuals acting responsibly alongside a decisive state (11). And in their actions — from universal credit cuts, to fighting Marcus Rashford on school meals, and a social care policy that makes working class wages subsidise privileged peoples’ housing wealth — they show themselves incapable of making the hard choices that can give working class people and their families more opportunity and security. (12)
(1) Right out the gates, this is clearly a gratuitous and deliberate divergence from the core topic. However, some things just need to be said: Labour’s biggest communication problem at the moment bar none is the utterly misrerabilist face it shows to this country. I don’t think this can be understated and actually think it strikes to the heart of the party’s apparent problems with ‘culture war’ issues or patriotism. Sir Keir Starmer is, in his political essence, a fairly robust rejoinder to any problems of this nature caused by Jeremy Corbyn’s politics and there is nothing in the various surveys that track British values to suggest that the country is getting anything other than more liberally inclined — including in the red wall. So when people ask ‘do Labour even like the country they want to lead’ maybe they mean something more direct — everything the party says, without fail, is negative about the country and its capabilities! People don’t like that!
The challenge is captured neatly in a nutshell by an excellent Economist article written by Duncan Weldon, where a shadow minister(!) gives the following, utterly depressing quote: “When you knock on the door of a big new house, how do you tell the people living there that the country is going wrong”. Let me put this as clearly as I can: you don’t. You tell them that the country is great but could be better. This conference, I honestly think anybody writing a Labour speech should look at what they’ve written and see whether it describes the country as basically shit. If it does, cross it out until it more closely fits the form, ‘we are a good country but could be better’.
(2) Another divergence, even more unavoidable: the pandemic. This is actually in some ways the most fascinating moment for the politics of Covid-19. The political incentive remains for Labour to be more cautious than the Government — if the Government mess up this winter and have to row back, even mildly, on social distancing freedoms then they are in all sorts of trouble: this time, they won’t get the benefit of anyones’ doubt. On the other hand, if the threat passes and people do become more comfortable living a somewhat ‘normal’ life then Labour’s caution is going to look, at the very best, like more negative miserablism. Labour simply has to look like it enjoys the fact we now have the freedom to live a normal social life, that is the bare minimum it should attempt tonally on Covid-19 in this speech. Indeed, if anything, they should probably over-egg it a bit, because as the country becomes more pro-freedom and less fearful — a change in the wind that could occur very suddenly — the politics of Covid-19 will make a crucial journey from being a ‘wedge’ issue that divides coalitions of opinion on the right, to one that divides coalitions of opinion on the left. This is going to be difficult for Labour, even if they do everything right (i.e. like tactically focus on easy issues that will unify opinion, like ventilation, global vaccine justice and NHS capacity). Striking the right tone from the conference platform is important.
(3) Somewhere in all this, Starmer will have to make it clear that what he means by the working class is the actual working class, not the media version of the working class i.e. that the working class is not just socially conservative, Brexit-supporting, older white men from the north of England. It is somewhat puzzling to me that he hasn’t already tried this, given his chief policy advisor wrote one of the very best books on this subject (Claire Ainsley, The New Working Class). I have not gone into too much depth here, because this is merely an outline argument — and his advisor wrote the book! But one of the key tactics in the suggested speech is to try and bind together a more aspirational, New Labour, Philip Gould definition of the working class to Ainsley’s analysis because, well, that right there is the election! Of course, both analyses are different from the hackneyed media version of the working class, (Gould’s is arguably somewhat closer) but as a bare definitional minimum Starmer must make it really clear that he sees ‘working class’ as inclusive of younger and more ethnically diverse people. Not only is it an easy applause line, it’s also quite obviously true.
(4) I suggest three arguments why Labour will be better than the Tories at delivering for working class people and their families towards the end of this summary, but the most important by far is a fourth unspoken one: that Starmer is more in touch with working class people because of his background and values. In fact, alongside answering the “whose side are you on” question, that would be the key strategic purpose of this speech.
Such ‘show don’t tell arguments’ are generally more persuasive and to this end the main one is Starmer’s personal history, which comes a bit later. However, one can also try to show sympathy via an understanding of how life feels for people who are experiencing problems. That is of course naturally fraught territory for politicians given the huge divergence of experience, but the pandemic and its hugely collective nature should give good politicians a rare shot at empathy. Yet I find it truly amazing that nobody — not even the Prime Minister who literally nearly died from the virus — has ever really tried to connect in this way. So whilst it is highly unlikely I have landed it here and Starmer probably won’t either, I’m also not sure there are too many downsides to having a good go.
(5) This is the crux of the speech and no, I haven’t focus grouped the ‘overworking class’ phrase and yes, Starmer’s team absolutely should in the bizarre scenario they are interested in this! However, what I would say is that if they do decide to focus group a neologism in order to answer the ‘whose side are you on’ question, I would set a fairly high bar, in terms of working class distaste, before junking it. Such phases are not really there to empathise (unless they are really good, anyway), but to set the commentariat and broadcast media off on one of their crazy definitional challenges that class and only class seems to bring out in them. Or, failing that, to at least get them as curious as they were about defining ‘the squeezed middle’ or the ‘just about managing’, both of which this suggested strategy quite transparently and liberally borrows from. The more they do that, the more the idea that ‘Keir Starmer comes from a working class background and wants to stand up for working class people’ might lodge in a few heads, even if the phrase itself seems meaningless or tacky.
The other thing to emphasise here is the use of occupational grouping as the primary way to define the ‘overworking class’. The first few occupations I’ve mentioned are literally stolen from a quote in Ainsley’s The New Working Class, with a few large working class occupational groups — drivers, warehouse workers, tradespeople — added on by me. This is not just an attempt to ‘red wall up’ — in a simplistic commentariat sense — the definition, it is also to recognise that Labour’s answer to the ‘whose side are you on’ question must be broader and more inclusive than is perhaps ideal due to the scale of the task the party faces in building a winning electoral coalition. Johnson’s answer, which is to use place (i.e. the red wall itself) as a proxy, is much clearer and will I think naturally always cut through more. On the other hand, it is a rather narrowly drawn answer which focuses fairly exclusively upon the swing voters he needed at the last election. At the next those who might ordinarily have thought themselves inside his political tent — see here the South East ‘blue wall’ — might start to notice this exclusivity. Either way, Labour has no such luxuries. It has to be vaguer because it needs to win lots of different types of voters and an occupational focus speaks to that, even when locating the speech entirely within the red wall question. It is what it is.
(6) Writing and publishing this Starmer life story section feels deeply weird and almost intrusive, even in such a pared back way. But I do really feel that there is a hugely under-leveraged personal story here, the articulation of which feels — irrespective of this conference season — to be central to Starmer’s pitch as a putative Prime Minister. As already mentioned, even now I think the levels of trust Johnson has built up in the red wall via Brexit are underestimated by progressives and Westminster alike — Starmer is going to have to do something fairly exceptional to get close to parity in that respect, even if the Prime Minister continues to burn through that trust by being generally useless, if not a bit venal. However, there is also a defensive aspect to this: the Tories are desperate to position Starmer (and Labour) as someone who looks down his nose at working class values (as expressed by the media). There can be no more powerful rebuttal to that than saying ‘this would mean looking down on my family’.
The other tactic to highlight here, at least for this speech, this year, is to use the personalised pitch as a way of rising above the Labour fray and, hopefully, finding the air to focus on the country’s future not the endless navel-gazing about the party’s past. In other words: to stop talking about what we got wrong and start talking about what we’ll put right. Can’t come soon enough, that mindset.
(7) Have just thrown this in here to point out that I quite like how Starmer talks proudly about his career. I don’t for one second think repeatedly asserting it conveys anything politically significant and worry that he and his team think it might. But even if they did, it wouldn’t be as weird as the hyper-defensive sentiment he should somehow be embarrassed about it because it was a big, elite job. I have heard some Labour people say this seriously too. To those people I say: stop being weird. Honestly, most people are proud of their careers, to seem defensive about it — even sub-consciously — looks suspect. Don’t be weird.
(8) I think there is a point here about how Starmer’s age, background and journey through social mobility make him something of a BBC 7-up style case study: he is a fairly representative class archetype (to a point, not everyone becomes Labour leader or Director of Public Prosecutions, but you catch my drift — lots of people of Keir Starmer’s age and background did end up becoming comfortably middle class from working class beginnings). Therefore, I would quite like to see him try to situate his story in a slightly longer lens account of a changing Britain — I think that might, perhaps unusually, work quite well. Well, as long as its about him and Britain, not more obsessing about Labour!
(9) Like I say, writing this whole section feels weird. But I cannot stress enough what a precious gift it is for politicians to be able to physically embody their own narrative — this whole speech outline and strategy is built around it. This is a wider lesson than this conference or speech. Whatever direction Starmer and his team go down, they should make an effort to align his personal story with the narrative they want to express. It always elevates the story-telling, politically.
(10) On many levels, it is astonishing how much of a mistake the Tories are making with their political body language on the issue of working from home. This is not the place to spell out the evidence on that — that is my day job. But trust me when I say categorically: they are. This presents Labour with something of a political gift in that it allows the party to spin a fairly clear ‘Labour future v Tory past’ message out of the pandemic experience and, what is more, one that millions of people definitely buy into. The problem for this suggested speech is that those millions are not really the ‘overworking class’, so rhetorically it will be tricky to tie the issues together. I have had a go here, but policy — see below — might be able to help too.
(11) Although, as a Labour member, I generally agree with “collectivist v individualist” framing, this is clearly straying into the more abstract musing I ranted at length about earlier. It is also, even on those terms, one of the weaker arguments politically-speaking — ordinary people really don’t think like this at all. Perhaps, by my own logic, it should be cut, but at this stage I am also looking to find a rhetorical bridge to the two biggest ‘ctrl F’ issues Labour must mention — climate change and the union — whilst simultaneously connecting them to the wider argument that the Tories do not understand the lessons of the post-pandemic world because they are wedded to the past. Tapping into a collective spirit seems a way to do that but if I’m honest it’s definitely Labour speechwriting by numbers. Not that conference is the worst venue for that.
(12) Finally: policy. I am almost tempted not to talk about policy at all — Labour is obsessed by it and really it is narrative that does the job of political persuasion (policy is nowhere near the top of the list in terms of what actually moves votes). However, clearly a conference speech should have a fairly big retail policy offer that captures the central argument in substance. The very best also capture an entire vision in a policy — I always give the example of Michael Gove’s free schools in this respect: they were a fairly insignificant policy compared to, well, just about everything else he did. Nevertheless, that one policy contained an entire vision for a Michael Gove education system: new entrants running schools, competition driving standards, the right people (for him) complaining.
For me, the policy area where the opportunity and security concerns of the overworking class most clearly interact is childcare and the early years — and parents (especially women) with children in the U18 education system are an absolutely pivotal group for Labour, electorally speaking. Not only that, one of the key abiding emotional experiences of the pandemic for many people is an astonishing reminder of the importance of nurseries and schools for society, their family and the economy (Joe Biden has got a lot of progressive mileage out of arguing that care work is critical national infrastructure). Therefore, as the headline announcement, I would definitely be looking to promise a universal free childcare system that looks after everyone and — this is absolutely crucial for the overworking class frame — is also available in weekends and evenings for shift workers. Equally important for that frame and for clear evidence-based reasons, it should also come with both an upskilling and training offer, as well as warm words about pay (other than raising the living wage, neither Labour nor the Government can do too much directly about that).
By now, we are talking big money — between £6bn and £12bn, depending on just how faithful you are to that ‘universal’ vision in detail! On the other hand, equalising capital gains tax with income tax rates would raise roughly £18bn a year according to the IPPR and, according to Opinium, might be the most popular tax rise (well, as an alternative to national insurance tax rises as a way of paying for social care anyway). Therefore, equalising or raising CGT might not only fund a big ticket childcare policy, it might also give Labour some money to play with for another ‘overworking class’ friendly policy announcement (I am well aware that many working class people may line up in the media to say ‘hey, capital gains tax rises affects me’ but really — if you want to make an omelette, you do have to break some eggs).
At this point some people might be expecting me to raise the dreaded social care issue and it is true that the outline speech narrative, particularly Starmer’s family background, might connect well with that. However, this, as I am getting quite tired of explaining on Twitter, would be a mistake (Labour have actually played this week very well in my opinion). As the well-made observation that there is in fact no social care policy in the Government’s social care policy alludes to, if Labour were to fully cost a social care policy now then that policy must include (a) a new social care policy; and (b) a £12bn a year national insurance tax cut. That is the logic of their current line anyway and, were they too stumble into it without this — especially now, in the heat of the moment — then I think they would be in all manner of trouble.
In the speech, I would stick to promising something like ‘we will bring forward plans for a progressive social care policy before the next election’ because their body language this week has to lead somewhere and, well, they just should, shouldn’t they? Instead they should put any money they have now into a policy where they really are making a mistake by not having a costed commitment: the universal credit cut, which comes in at around £6bn. For one, it makes a much more sizeable difference to ‘overworking class’ lives. But more importantly, it is the defining policy and campaigning issue of the next three months — Labour needs to get on the pitch properly, as they failed to do last year with furlough.
Universal childcare and restoring the universal credit cut — two policies that I think deliver to the opportunity and security framing, respectively. And, sotto voce, may also contain the germ of a wider Labour vision: we are on the side of the working class and will take tough choices to deliver for their families. Oh, and unlike the Tories, it’s privileged people not you, who we will make pay for it.
