Latest news with #post-Thatcher
The Herald Scotland
23-07-2025
- Business
- The Herald Scotland
Who does Labour exist to represent in Starmer's Britain?
Contrary to what many people remember the first Thatcher government, elected in 1979, was comparatively benign compared with what was to come – the miners' strike, mass unemployment, the economic vandalism of the 1980s, the Poll Tax – and Kinnock knew that it was simply a warm-up routine. If Thatcher was re-elected, he told the packed hall and a live TV audience on News at Ten, 'I warn you not to be ordinary. I warn you not to be young. I warn you not to fall ill. I warn you not to get old'. Read More: A politician so cruelly misrepresented in the Conservative media, Kinnock was not only the architect of New Labour, and arguably the best Prime Minister his party never had, he was also the greatest platform orator of his generation. Listening to one of his rousing, charismatic and intelligent speeches, was to be reminded of the power of collective ambition and the glorious possibility of change. Above all, he always stressed the importance of not overpromising and of delivering. Neil Kinnock (Image: PA) What is striking about listening to his words today – more than 40 years later – is that under the current leadership, they might equally apply to the Labour government. Labour leaders have always faced a perilous balancing act in appealing simultaneously to the party faithful and the wider electorate. There are those, like Tony Blair and Harold Wilson, who managed the neat trick of speaking effectively to both. Others, like Jeremy Corbyn and Michael Foot didn't even pretend to be interested in engaging with the latter and succumbed, inevitably to the gravitational effects of their own hubris at the polls. The current leadership appears to be the first in the party's history to speak to neither. Sir Keir Starmer's first year as Prime Minister has been marked by a dramatic collapse in public support, with his net approval rating now worse than all post-Thatcher prime ministers, with the exception of Gordon Brown, at the same stage. Key missteps include his controversial decision – alongside Chancellor Rachel Reeves – to cut winter fuel payments for pensioners. This move, justified by a disputed £22billion "black hole", alienated older voters and damaged his reputation, and his inability to deliver on key manifesto pledges accelerated that decline. A recent Public First poll revealed 39% of voters believe he has made no progress on any major promises, including cutting NHS waiting times (24%), restoring order to the asylum system (8%), or improving border security (12%). Tax hikes included in last year's Autumn Statement eroded business confidence, while a prisoner early-release scandal – where a freed inmate thanked Starmer for his "privilege" – deepened the sense of detachment. A disastrous first year was capped with the poor handling of the government's welfare bill, which squeezed through its final Commons stage, only after significant rebellion and concessions. The bill's passage followed weeks of chaos, with ministers forced to scrap PIP cuts for existing claimants and delay changes for new ones. Starmer's low-drama persona, once an asset against Tory turmoil, now appears indecisive, with Reform overtaking Labour in polls and Nigel Farage seen as a stronger leader. The most damaging impact of these failures may well be in the longer term, applied by voters who could be forgiven for wondering who Labour represents and what it stands for. If it is not there to support the 'ordinary, the young, the ill and the old' then what is its purpose? The party is still battling to overcome claims of antisemitism that took root under Corbyn's disastrous, sclerotic leadership. This week Susan Smith, director of the campaign group For Women Scotland claimed the party has an 'ongoing women problem' after Labour MP Tim Roca described gender critical activists as 'swivel-eyed'. While Blair had the benefit of a growing economy when he won a landslide victory in 1997, he also came into office with an identifiable political credo and a sense of purpose. The doctrinal prism through which all policy decisions were refracted, was reform – modernising the party and bringing it more in line with mainstream orthodoxy. While he inevitably alienated parts of Labour's base – not least through his disastrous and, ultimately career-defining, decision to support a US invasion of Iraq – he continued to command popular support. If there's one thing core voters and activists cannot argue against, it's winning elections. The problem for Starmer and his colleagues is that, more than a year into government, voters still have no idea what they stand for. Relying solely on competence for electoral appeal quickly becomes a liability when you make a series of demonstrably incompetent decisions. Before Starmer can begin to address his party's disparity in the opinion polls, he must prioritise reconnecting with its grassroots, to articulate more clearly his values and beliefs, to counter the threat, not only from Farage's snake oil promises, but also from Corbyn's new, and as yet unnamed, party of the far left. He could do worse than start watch another of Kinnock's former speeches, his leader's address to the Labour conference in 1985 when he took on Militant Tendency, the Trotskyist insurgency that threatened to subvert the party from within. His delivery was an object lesson in highlighting the futility of dogmatc obsession and was directed at Militant members who had captured Liverpool City Council, bankrupting it with profligate, illegal spending and then sacking its own employees because it couldn't afford to pay their wages. 'Implausible promises don't win victories,' he told a chastened hall. If Starmer can first convince his party's faithful of that abiding truth, he will be better placed to win over the wider electorate. Carlos Alba is a journalist, author, and PR consultant at Carlos Alba Media. His latest novel, There's a Problem with Dad, explores the issue of undiagnosed autism among older people
The National
03-05-2025
- Business
- The National
'All British parties are destroying industrial capability of Scotland'
This is the continuation of a plan, since 2014, by all British political parties to destroy the remaining post-Thatcher industrial capability of Scotland, the land of oil, gas, wind energy and many other assets coveted by our neighbour. As The Proclaimers sing, 'Bathgate no more, Linwood no more, Methil no more, Irvine no more'. Now add, 'Grangemouth no more'. All delivered by successive UK governments. It does not matter which, all have the same agenda to 'close down' Scotland, continuing our history of emigration out of our country. Their reason? They are terrified of losing Scotland and access to our assets. Scotland, were we independent today, would nationalise Grangemouth and all energy production and distribution to recreate industries destroyed by London. These initiatives would be financed by our own currency, central bank and treasury. The SNP leadership need to be aware of the game in play, call it out for what it is – industrial sabotage – and get Scots activated for an outstanding campaign of resistance in May 2026. Ian Stewart Uig, Isle of Skye
NZ Herald
01-05-2025
- Entertainment
- NZ Herald
Decades after her death, Princess Diana is still larger than life
Behind palace doors, after her marriage crumbled, she took a lover and secretly puppet-mastered her own bombshell 1992 biography Diana: Her True Story. Her capacity for risk-taking was enormous, White notes, and it 'exacerbated almost every difficulty she encountered as a member of the royal family'. But this was part and parcel of her grandiosity. Rejected by a cruel husband, she was summoned, according to the book, to a higher purpose. She once said to a startled Peter Nott, bishop of Norwich: 'I understand people's pain, people's suffering, more than you will ever know.' White, previously the author of The Twelve Lives of Alfred Hitchcock, employs an overly academic style on occasion, perhaps aiming to resist the hyperbole surrounding Diana. He also devotes considerable space to the feelings of ordinary people, relying on oral histories in the British Library, personal testimonies included in the Mass Observation project at the University of Sussex and private diaries. Most never met Diana, yet 'consider her a vital presence in their lives,' he writes. Is it churlish to describe those sections as the least interesting? Far more compelling is White's analysis of Diana's impact on the monarchy, British politics and wider society. After her separation from Prince Charles, she formed a quasi-alliance with Tony Blair and his New Labour movement. For a time, they appeared to sing from the same hymnbook. The princess believed in a reformed, consoling monarchy; Blair promised a post-Thatcher Britain 'in which ambition for oneself and compassion for others can live easily together'. Diana hoped that once Blair became Prime Minister, he'd appoint her as a sort of roving brand ambassador for Britain – a humanitarian on the hoof, who also waved the flag. 'Nobody, including Diana, really knew what such a position might entail,' White notes. It never came to pass, as Blair disapproved of Diana's willingness to be drawn into the orbit of Mohamed al-Fayed, the Harrods owner, who had been implicated in a scheme to bribe members of Parliament. Blair advised her to stay away from al-Fayed, but, Diana, wilful as ever, instead distanced herself from the Prime Minister and started dating Fayed's son. Dodi Fayed died in the car crash that also killed her. What followed in Britain was unprecedented: national mourning was so emotional, so unbridled, that one observer, future Prime Minister Boris Johnson, called it 'a Latin American carnival of grief'. In the run-up to the funeral, Queen Elizabeth II was hectored by the media into flouting protocol and flying the Union Jack over Buckingham Palace at half-staff, and making a public attestation to her sorrow in a televised speech. Diana, Blair once said, invented a 'new way to be British'. White counters, 'It might be more accurate to say that through Diana, the British invented a new way of fantasising about themselves'. Whatever transmogrification took place, the royal family got the memo. They have abandoned the stiff upper lip; nowadays they speak openly about their emotions and eschew pompous patronages to concentrate on social ills. Prince William aims to end homelessness in Britain – his mother having taken him at age 11 to visit a London shelter to meet those with no place to live. He and his wife, Catherine, have spearheaded a mental health initiative called Heads Together. Notably, William chose a spouse radically different from his mother: introverted, measured and cautious rather than impulsive and reckless. But thanks to Diana's rejection of royal conventions, her son had greater freedom to pick someone from outside the ruling class. (Famously, Catherine's mother is a former flight attendant, her father a former flight dispatcher for British Airways.) Diana's life as a divorcee in the 1990s and the response to her death 'did inject into the mainstream of British life a strain of populism that had usually existed only on the fringes,' White writes. While he resists linking Diana directly to Brexit, he accurately points out how the political climate in Britain has never been the same. Authority is met with less deference. Institutions are more open to outsiders. Politicians weep on camera and urge the public to show troubled youths more love. And leaders can be chastised for appearing to lack feeling. In a bizarre episode earlier this month, Kemi Badenoch, head of the Conservative Party, was questioned closely on a BBC News show as to why she hadn't yet watched the widely discussed Netflix drama Adolescence about a West Yorkshire boy who murders his classmate. Badenoch countered that she prefers to devote time to meeting real people in trouble rather than watching television dramas. It's hard to imagine this exchange happening in pre-Diana Britain. Of course, interest in the princess has always spanned the globe, and a new generation is meeting the rebel royal through the numerous television, film and theatrical productions about her. The obsession, in White's view, shows no sign of fading away.
