Merciless Labour is following the Blair-Brown playbook

When Gordon Brown arrived at the Treasury in 1997, he knew that everyday the new Labour government was not dominating the headlines was a day that could be won by his opponents.

Frantic activity and a calendar of announcements and initiatives would not only show that the government was “acting” but that it had a long-term plan, a phrase also employed ad infinitum by a subsequent chancellor, George Osborne. Brown understood that the public only had a passing interest in politics and that you had to make a significant amount of noise for any of it to leak through to the voters.

Tony Blair regularly asked his political team in No 10 – often in a stream of emails on a Sunday evening – if there were any policy initiatives he could be “personally associated with”. Dominating the news cycle became an arm of political warfare.
Brown and Blair, two of the most effective political campaigners of the past 30 years, invented “the forever campaign”.

Yes, John Major and the Conservatives may have been on their knees, but the clunking fist of New Labour was relentless.
Sir Keir Starmer and his closest allies have learnt at the feet of the two men whom even the Conservatives, then in pointless Opposition, described as “The Masters”. The playbook was simple – never forget who your enemies are and keep re-burying them again and again in a blizzard of reviews and policy statements which almost become laughable in their repetitiveness. It matters not, because it is only when the snooty political classes are thoroughly bored of the message that the public might actually notice.

When Rachel Reeves – who had a framed picture of Brown on her desk when she was at university – made 
her first speech as Chancellor a week ago, she reached for the Brown/Blair “forever campaign” manual. Reeves announced a new Treasury-inspired “political event”, an audit of the public finances which will be published before the end of 
the month.

This will guarantee the Chancellor 24 hours of headlines on just how bad the Conservatives were. It will start with the pre-briefing of the “horror show” Treasury officials have laid before her, continue with a major speech in Parliament – with plenty of delighted pointing at the depleted Opposition by the massed ranks of new Labour backbenchers – and end with myriad clips on the evening television bulletins watched by millions of people.

It does not matter to Labour that the Institute for Fiscal Studies has said that with official bodies such as The Office for Budget Responsibility now in charge of the independent analysis of the public finances, the claim “we didn’t know what we were inheriting” holds less water than it once did. Reeves knows that the new report she has invented will allow the Government to make the case again: never go back to that lot, department by department, failed policy by failed policy.
“We will expose the state the country has been left in,” one senior Government figure told me, expressing shock at half-baked Tory government zombie projects which remain unfunded and undelivered. “We have to lay out the case, or they blame us.” 

The Conservatives may only have 121 seats, but for many on the Left who know that Labour’s greatest skill is losing elections, not winning them, that is still a dangerously high number.

The “public finances audit” prepares the ground for the Autumn Statement, itself a once little noticed moment in the government calendar that was supposed to be a Green Paper forerunner to the much more important Spring Budget. It was Brown who alighted on it as another moment to show the Treasury’s power, making it into one of the key planks of the political season. Reeves has no plans to dial it back.

It is the same approach with prisons, where the new Justice Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, not only announced the early release of thousands of convicted criminals – blaming it, in passing, on the failed Tories – but said there would now be an annual statement on prison capacity. She claimed it would be used to hold the Government to account. Voters can rest assured it will also be a way of reminding everyone of past disasters.

Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, said he was “stunned” by NHS failings. His response? A review by Prof Lord Darzi, who first came to political prominence in 2007 when Brown invited him to become a health minister.

John Healey, the Defence Secretary, said that a “strategic review” was necessary despite the most recent review of the UK’s defence capabilities being completed just a year ago. It is unlikely that Starmer will finally put a timetable on his promise to increase defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP each year until after the review has reported in “less than a year”.
The problem with reviews is that they are not action, they are analysis. At this early stage of the Government, Starmer and Reeves will wear the risk. “It’s politically expedient,” one source told me.

In 1997, Brown argued that making the case for change was as important as the change itself, even if it took time. Starmer and Reeves agree. With a huge majority and the Conservatives irrelevant to the debate for at least the next six months – and probably much longer – it is only Reform and Nigel Farage who could be a cause for concern. But momentum there has already stalled now that the regular spotlight of an election campaign has been switched off.

The strategy is clear. Blame the Tories, announce a review, remain patient and plan for the next five years.
But there are risks. Voters want to see change in a world where high taxes bear little relation to the standard of public services. Brown and Blair were swept in on a wave of positive sentiment, Starmer does not have such a well to draw on. Events, dear boy, events, can always intervene.

It was the famous global analyst and trend forecaster, boxer and ear biter Mike Tyson, who once said: “Everyone has a strategy until they get punched in the face.” 

Starmer and Reeves are hopeful for some voter largesse before the public considers it is time to give this new Labour Government a bloody nose.