Starmer on Keir Hardie, localism & what Labour Governments do
Keir Starmer made a speech in Birmingham on 4th January which was billed as an attempt to build on Labour’s recent poll lead. On 5th January Starmer had to self-isolate due to testing positive for COVID again. The unkind might say this was a better contribution to the poll lead project
One social media comment suggested that the speech could have been made by any Tory PM from Macmillan on. Either the tweeter had not read the speech or their grasp of recent British political history was not great.
No Tory PM would make the remarks below (link to full speech below- as usual with Starmer it was about 40% too long). However as Steve Richards also on twitter pointed out it did have something of the ring of Sir Tony Blair about it. That is probably because several people who helped write speeches for him had a hand in this one.
One might see it as a step forward for Starmer. Before Xmas he gave an interview to The I Paper where he appeared to claim he had no idea what socialism was.
Now in 2022 he has remembered Keir Hardie, perhaps in a bid to stop people calling him Keith (I am in full support). Quoting Hardie is a nod at a Labour audience. Hardie spoke and wrote a lot but was not particularly consistent in his views. Hence words to please the left and/or the right can easily be found.
Hardie was a more or less consistent republican and opposed the First World War which made him patriotic in my view but perhaps not in Starmers.
In the speech however Starmer mentions Hardie being in favour of a local garb. Given that Starmer is a North London MP that means a beard of course. However the point is really about not having too much centralised State control, empowering communities etc. Very New Labour but in other contexts it doesn’t need to be. For example local Councils could be given the resources they have lost over many years to actually provide decent services as required locally.
Starmer reminds us of the best and worst bits of the 1945 Labour Government- a useful thing to do though perhaps not what he intended but he is right that Attlee and Wilson did do things that improved the lives of working people a bit. When it comes to Sir Tony the jury is still out not least because he is still actively trying to shape his legacy.
The rest of the speech was as often quite vacuous, again very Blair. The problem is that many voters spotted the point in the New Labour period. Fine sounding principles were orated on regularly but nothing much seemed to happen- possibly because reforming capitalism little bit by little bit is just as difficult as getting rid of it altogether.
Keir Hardie once said that British socialism must “wear a local garb”.
He meant that British socialism was rooted in the everyday concerns of working people. The titans of 1945 were elected to power on the votes of the demobbed service men and women. That government took the spirit of collective sacrifice generated by the war and turned it into the National Health Service for which we are so thankful today.
It was a patriotic government, which understood the importance of national defence, which created NATO, the alliance that has preserved the peace in Europe ever since and gave this country its independent nuclear deterrent. The 1945 Labour government laid the foundations for the end of Empire and the beginning of the modern commonwealth.
Under Wilson the Open University extended higher education. The Race Relations Act of 1965 prohibited racial discrimination. Barbara Castle’s Equal Pay Act was a watershed moment in the fight for gender equality. The Blair government introduced a national minimum wage and repaired the public services that had been neglected under the Tories.
When I reflect on previous Labour governments, I have two thoughts. The first is, what a record we have! These three chapters of change – Attlee, Wilson and Blair – made Britain a better country. We must be the people who write the fourth chapter. The people who create a new Britain in the 21st century.
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