This is the second of PPI’s weekly bulletin charting the course of the UK General Election, from PPI’s Claire Ainsley.
Claire is based in the UK, directing PPI’s project on center-left renewal, and is former director of policy to Labour leader Keir Starmer. She is supporting the Labour campaign, as a media commentator, as well as on the ground ahead of polling day on Thursday 4th July.
The UK is now in the astonishing position that the governing political party is now polling third – or close to it – in a two-party system. Such is the Conservatives’ unpopularity amongst the electorate at large, and the threat from new party Reform UK so great, that the dominant political party in British politics is facing a real crisis.
However there are still three weeks to go until polling day, and not a vote has been cast, as Labour leader Keir Starmer and his Shadow Cabinet have been at pains to point out. We know from recent elections how much more volatile the electorate is, with tribal loyalties weakened, so we just cannot be certain of the outcome. There is no complacency in the ground operation of the Labour party, which is fighting for a large number of battleground seats across England, Wales and Scotland before voters go to the polls on 4th July.
This week saw the publication of the party manifestos, with more pressure on the Conservatives to produce a game-changing offer given the state of the race. Despite eye-catching promises of tax cuts, the manifesto doesn’t appear to be shifting the dial in their direction. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has had days of negative coverage after he left the D-Day commemorations early to return to the UK for an election interview, a decision widely condemned and one he later apologised for. Labour played it safe with their “no surprises” manifesto, essentially re-announcing much of the programme for government they have already set out, which I have written about more extensively for Labour List here [add link when live]. The manifesto is light years away from the high spending promises of the Corbyn years, but is clearly inspired by the ambition of the Biden administration to harness the dynamic power of the state to fuel private enterprise.
Gratifyingly for PPI, Labour leader Keir Starmer placed remaking the deal whereby if you work hard you can get on, at the centre of the manifesto, which we argued for in our publication ‘Roadmap to Hope’ last year.
In the end much of the political debate is coming down to the parlous state of the UK’s public finances. Independent experts the Institute for Fiscal Studies have taken a sceptical view of all the parties’ plans, saying they do not adequately cover public funding commitments without tax hikes or further cuts to services. With another three weeks to go, we should expect the parties to come under intense pressure to demonstrate how they can deliver on their promises without leaning into one or the other.
