Too much froth is spewed from the mouths of journalists and commentators still addicted to the permanent sugarcane of the Tory years. Excited talk of Sir Keir Starmer being finished and out in 2025 continues to ignore the cardinal fact of this political era: Labour’s parliamentary majority is unassailable and Labour rarely changes its leaders.
For all the excitement, few have noticed that Labour’s polling lead has just dipped a bit since the election, with the Conservatives showing no sign of revival at all.
This is curious because at the heart of government, there is a clarity about what the Government’s objective is: they are clear eyed that they are the last line of defence of mainstream British politics and the rise of the radical right.
When this happens, the theory goes, voters will turn away from extremes. Starmer and McSweeney say this as if it is an incontestable fact – I am not so convinced. And this is where forces beyond Starmer’s control start to enter the mix.
I have been shocked by the lack of urgency among ministers (though not a substantial cohort of Labour MPs) about the prospect of Musk donating enormous sums of money to Nigel Farage’s Reform. Though we might think some of this is Farage’s typical mischief-making, there can be no doubt about the positive tweets sent by the billionaire about Reform, nor the bonhomie on display between them in a now iconic picture of the two of them, taken at Mar-a-Lago last week. A $100m (£80m) donation would be a game changer in British politics, eclipsing anything we’ve ever seen.
Yet she made clear that the Government intended to take precisely no action to prevent it any time soon, by even closing this loophole. She said that Labour had a packed legislative programme for the next session, and argued that you can’t “change the rules of the game” in the middle of playing.
Do we think for a moment, that if an equivalent foreign backer, say Bill Gates, was proposing a game-changing donation to Labour, that the Conservatives or Reform would not change the rules at pace? This is how populists win. They don’t observe norms and rules, while established players do, indeed they fret about them. Moreover, Farage will always claim that the establishment is trying to rig things against him – he’s made a career out of it.
The Electoral Commission is often weak and gutless, whilst regulation for political advertising online is virtually non-existent, despite TV and radio being heavily controlled.
My mum's two big loves died, but her desire to try again is incredible
Read MoreAnd this is where we go back to Starmer/McSweeney diagnosis: even if they’re right, even if politics hasn’t changed, and people just want those modest, everyday improvements, even assuming ministers can deliver them at pace and scale, in an era where content is king, narrative is all: it is entirely possible voters might experience it and still not believe it’s happened.
It is indisputably in Labour’s interest to act – but more importantly it’s in the country’s.
Use it to tackle how politics is consumed in the digital space, which right now is a Wild West. If this Government does nothing else in its long term ahead, it will have done us all a favour.
Lewis Goodall is a journalist, broadcaster and host of the podcast The News Agents
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