{"id":134474,"date":"2024-09-14T11:44:31","date_gmt":"2024-09-14T11:44:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/09\/14\/starmer-says-hell-make-tough-decisions-but-will-he-say-the-unsayable-on-trickiest-issues\/"},"modified":"2024-09-14T11:44:31","modified_gmt":"2024-09-14T11:44:31","slug":"starmer-says-hell-make-tough-decisions-but-will-he-say-the-unsayable-on-trickiest-issues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/09\/14\/starmer-says-hell-make-tough-decisions-but-will-he-say-the-unsayable-on-trickiest-issues\/","title":{"rendered":"Starmer says he’ll make tough decisions – but will he say the unsayable on trickiest issues?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The clock on the mantelpiece in the Cabinet Room ticks surprisingly loudly, marking every half-second. The moment prime ministers take their seat in the captain\u2019s chair, time is running out.<\/p>\n

Sir Keir Starmer wants you to believe he\u2019s brave enough – and determined enough – to stare down the country\u2019s long-term problems. Even if it means saying what was previously unsayable.<\/p>\n

To have clean energy, more people will have to put up with pylons near their homes. To have more houses built, more of us will have to accept developments in the neighbourhood. His decision to take cash to help with fuel bills away from most pensioners fits into that category too.<\/p>\n

For years, many politicians privately thought it was daft to give wealthy pensioners extra cash for their fuel bills – but it\u2019s Sir Keir who\u2019s now said that out loud.<\/p>\n

He says he wants to crack down on the UK\u2019s problems, and has a whopping majority to boot. But no government can do everything all at once.<\/p>\n

Over the years I\u2019ve heard the same list of \u201cunsayables\u201d from senior officials and politicians time and time again – issues that need fixing in the UK but aren\u2019t ever confronted.<\/p>\n

So what would insiders – both current and former – put on their list of issues that are still unsayable for this new government?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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When it comes to health, in almost the same breath as promising to overhaul the NHS, Sir Keir says that fixing the care of the most vulnerable and elderly – the most difficult thing – will have to wait.<\/p>\n

It was the Tories\u2019 plan to cap social care costs, and Labour were going to stick to it. They\u2019ve now ditched it.<\/p>\n

Many politicians accept privately that you don\u2019t have much hope of sorting out the NHS properly if you haven\u2019t made major moves to improve the social care system.<\/p>\n

Successive governments have dangled, then dropped reform. It\u2019s no one party\u2019s fault. It\u2019s no one politician\u2019s fault.<\/p>\n

But with an ageing population and many years of pressure on public spending the problem has only become more acute. Labour has nodded sagely at the urgency of the issue. But a fundamental overhaul is on pause for now.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Another issue affecting the older generation comes up often too: the triple lock. It\u2019s the guarantee that the state pension goes up each year by either 2.5%, inflation, or earnings growth – whichever is the highest figure.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not at all good for the country, but it is good politics,\u201d a very senior opposition politician told me, even giggling at how wrong-headed it was in their view.<\/p>\n

Labour had little political choice in the election but to commit to it too.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ll have heard Sir Keir saying repeatedly in the last few days that the winter fuel allowance cut will be offset because the triple lock, introduced by the Tories, is still in place.<\/p>\n

You can see the political appeal to always protecting pensioners\u2019 incomes, as one former official said, but it \u201cbakes in rising spending with an ageing population, so, unless you suddenly get brave about tax, you have no answer.\u201d<\/p>\n

In other words, as there are more and more pensioners, more and more people will be guaranteed a certain hike in their income from the taxpayer.<\/p>\n

Whether you think that\u2019s right and proper or think, like many politicians, that it is asking for trouble, it comes with a hefty price tag that\u2019s only growing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Multiple sources also mentioned the serious quandary over university fees and numbers.<\/p>\n

Millions more young people have gone to university in recent decades. For many of them, and many families, it\u2019s been life-changing.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s no secret that many institutions are struggling for cash, some even said to be on the verge of going under.<\/p>\n

No politician would want to tell a family or a young person that they shouldn\u2019t be allowed to attend. But as one former senior official put it bluntly, \u201cfees need to go up or they need to find alternative money.\u201c<\/p>\n

Another Whitehall figure suggested the question politicians aren\u2019t willing to ask is: should so many people go?<\/p>\n

Though \u201cvote for us, and we won\u2019t help you get to university\u201d won’t be on any leaflets any time soon.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Sir Keir, pictured here with Health Secretary Wes Streeting, has ditched plans to cap social care costs<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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Then, there is tax.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve encountered a whole range of views on whether it\u2019s fair to tax wealth and income so differently. Does the business tax system still work? (Not really, it\u2019s claimed.) Shouldn\u2019t it all be much simpler anyway? (Probably, most say.)<\/p>\n

But also, what no politician wants to say out loud in public – but many in Westminster regularly say in private – is how wildly out of date the council tax system is, based as it is on property values from 1991.<\/p>\n

You read that right. The size of your council tax bill, in England and Scotland, is based on what your flat or house was worth 33 years ago.<\/p>\n

You don\u2019t need me to tell you that property values have changed an awful lot since then, and not in a uniform way. The independent Institute for Fiscal Studies says it means the tax is \u201cout of date, regressive, and distorted\u201d, creating unfairness between households, and councils too.<\/p>\n

There is no appetite in government to take a big look at the system. New Labour had a go, then backed away from any major changes.<\/p>\n

One source claimed it was \u201cwonkish\u201d to believe reform was a priority, and it wouldn\u2019t necessarily raise any extra cash that might be useful for the Treasury coffers.<\/p>\n

But many sources reckon a revaluation is incredibly overdue, and has to take place.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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There\u2019s another whole list of anomalies in the status quo, that governments would never design now if you started with a blank page. But they haven\u2019t got the bandwidth or desire to sort them out.<\/p>\n

Fourty-three different police forces in England and Wales? \u201cIt\u2019s mad,\u201d says one insider. A maze of different types of local government \u2013 \u201cbaffling\u201d, says another.<\/p>\n

Then there are absolutely toxic political questions that most hardly even dare to whisper. Insiders wonder, can the model of the NHS survive for ever with an ageing population? Is it the right thing to subsidise the steel industry while it staggers on?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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There are clear consequences of ignoring an unsayable.<\/p>\n

For years, politicians didn\u2019t want to say out loud that if you locked up more people (popular), you would also have to build more prisons (unpopular), or they would burst.<\/p>\n

Now, the new government has been pushed to do something unpalatable – early releases on a big scale – because the unsayable went unsaid.<\/p>\n

How far ministers will now go in being honest about any longer-term solutions for prisons? Watch this space.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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This government believes that focusing on short-term politics – which create new long-term problems – is \u201cunforgiveable\u201d. And it seems that genuinely, ministers want to get to grips with problems that have been building up in the country for many, many years.<\/p>\n

Yet, there is of course a limit to what they can do.<\/p>\n

One senior figure acknowledged, \u201can enormous majority gives a massive advantage which is political stability \u2013 that means you can do difficult things.\u201d<\/p>\n

But addressing many of those long term problems is hard without a willingness or ability to spend a lot more cash, or take money away from other parts of the state.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s \u201cmuch easier when you have the money of Thatcher 1983-87 and Blair 2001-2007\u201d, one formal official suggests.<\/p>\n

When public finances are in trouble, they continue, \u201cmaybe it\u2019s the right call to try to get growth first\u201d, rather than ending up with more stubborn problems in a second term.<\/p>\n

They remark acidly: “In a post-ideological age, no governments want to tackle these issues. The last one had 14 years to do so and didn\u2019t.”<\/p>\n

But if we are to believe this government\u2019s proclamations that they really want to pursue long-term solutions for the country\u2019s ills, perhaps more of the unsayables will need to be said out loud.<\/p>\n

Sir Keir Starmer is making the case that ignoring problems in the long term is part of the reason for what has gone wrong.<\/p>\n

But when he vowed to do the \u201cdifficult things now\u201d, the reality for any prime minister is that the list of difficult things can never be complete.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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BBC InDepth<\/i><\/a> is the new home on the website and app for the best analysis and expertise from our top journalists. Under a distinctive new brand, we\u2019ll bring you fresh perspectives that challenge assumptions, and deep reporting on the biggest issues to help you make sense of a complex world. And we\u2019ll be showcasing thought-provoking content from across BBC Sounds and iPlayer too. We\u2019re starting small but thinking big, and we want to know what you think – you can send us your feedback by clicking on the button below.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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