Wwho is more afraid of the new year: Keir Starmer or Rachel Reeves? Most people would expect the turn of the year to have better chances on the way, but it’s hard to see the prime minister and chancellor ahead of the next few months and expect 2025 to be any funnier than this. half of 2024. The supervisor is reviewing where he expects to find employees 5% efficiency in their departmentsthus for another 12 months he was attached, as the least popular man in the box table. For Starmer, however, misery is not inevitable. Or at least, it can’t be if he changes the way he works, as most people try to at this time of year.
One reason Work to control the aspect so reached that it is so difficult that both Starmer and the Prefect play bad cop at the moment. Good cop, bad cop is supposed to work as a negotiating strategy where one half of the company is negative and hostile, while the other partner comes across as upbeat, friendly and encouraging. The bad cop is supposed to start the negotiation and then the good cop sweeps in to make it appear as if they are trying to win the match on the person’s side.
He started working as a bad cop as soon as he came into government: a story about the £22bn black hole and the message left by the Tories in the worst opinion was that the Conservative Party’s path was to take hold much longer. But a good cop must have emerged by now. He has not. Starmer is still stuck in complaining about the Tories, which he wanted about his vision. The minister’s first question is often a series of exchanges about which party is not as bad as the other, as Starmer confidently steamrollers the unpopular Tory party, which has taken the decision to say nothing at all about what it wants to do for a long time. .
Kemi Badenoch refused to get into specifics about the state, to make it easier for Starmer to draw a contrast between his government and the opposition, but instead seems quite happy to spend more time talking about the opposition than what he is doing. He’s most positive when there’s something vaguely happy about the economy, and he demands that Badenoch take it on: something he won’t be able to do most of the time if the economy continues to flatline in 2025.
His most recent non-fatal speech was considered a “measurable milestone” in what he wanted to do to change Britain for the better. But it doesn’t help enough to turn it into a somewhat extended moan, involving endless mistakes of his predecessors, and even denying that it was a civil service that “comfortable in the bath tub of managed declines“.
For his part, the Prefects in the autumn recognized that it was too sad, and began peppering their speeches with optimistic statements about the future. She told the Labor party conference that her “best hope for Britain is brighter than ever”, and then said in the budget that “my faith in Britain burns brighter than ever”. Come spring, it will be a mode of “burning passion” normally reserved for teenagers writing their university personal statements. But whatever his language, the Prefect cannot be a good cop: it is not because the chancellors are there.
No, he shouldn’t be talking about the economy, which was one of the first complaints from businesses about his arrival (they’ve already moved to complain about tax hikes). In government, the job is not about being the best mate of all, but about sticking to the government’s priorities. That inevitably involves a cabinet of ministers who think that all the delicious projects are more important than their colleagues, and who cannot understand why the treasury does not agree.
It also involves overturning advocates, many of whom still seem in awe of the government that gives you power – but only to choose between two unpleasant options that bother everyone. The recent turmoil in the party over the refusal to compensate Wasp women It was a perfect example of that: if the Lords had agreed to the £10.5bn bill, there would have been a backlash from the electorate on the other hand, who are hoping to get nowhere.
So Starmer has to be a good cop, even though his cabinet colleagues aren’t quite sure of him. They say that nothing seems to motivate him more than identifying areas of bad practice and talking about how to make the organization work better. At the time of the conversion meeting, he followed certain protocols, having a head of the civil service who seems to observe civil compliance: all this relates to Starmer. Even long-term partners have to accept that when things are going right, you are worth more than you. You need to know specifically what you want to do. It is still not clear that Starmer knows that.
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The team around Starmer has changed a lot recently, with experienced hands such as James Lyons joining as strategic communications head for a beefy side of the operation that has been struggling. But then again, you can have a comms operation in the world and still not succeed unless you are clear about what you want to communicate with yourself. In fact, “measurable milestones“underlined that, while Starmer is clearly obsessed with the administration’s views, he is still not fully sure what his purpose is, other than to do things better than the Conservatives. He likes to talk about “missional government”, “pillars” and other phrases, beloved of people who are in “birth “they work, but, as prime minister, he is the one with the power to write the letter, not the postman who delivers it. – great as that is.
There are areas in which the Starmer government is really trying to reform, particularly in health policy and planning. She moved faster than the latter, blocking Angela Rayner’s large exchanges to accelerate planning permission and build more houses and infrastructure where the government thinks it is needed.
Wes Streeting goes to great lengths to explain the NHS plan, which has left many in the health and political world concerned that, despite a broad direction for reform, the government still doesn’t really know how to achieve it. a health service that is in permacris.
But both Rayner and Streeting show the prime minister: they know they are good cops. These two ministers are the frontrunners to become the leader for a certain reason. It’s both sincere that Starmer, for all the talk of his career, also strives to bring it together. They also have something far more powerful than the back story, which is the fire in their belly. They appear eager to win, while Starmer’s energy levels are much lower.
Trying to be more like a colleague probably won’t work for Starmer either – remember Gordon Brown tries to smile in a YouTube video – but the prime minister knows how animated and passionate it can be: it’s just that the focus of that movement has shifted from talking about the failure of the Tories and the Labor Party to some other topics that relate to and resonate with the electorate. that the prime minister is leading them to a better future, even if it is not quite here yet. After all, one of the things everyone likes about the new year is that it brings a sense of hope that life could get a little better soon.