Retro-futurism is having a political moment too. Keir Starmer, plodding through the travails of public finance squeezes, poor pre-election policy planning, foiled attempts to upend the welfare system and poll doldrums, has unearthed many ghosts of the Tony Blair era in his first year in office – all in an attempt to bring savviness and succour to an uncertain government agenda.
In truth, Allan did a relatively short stint in Number 10 under Blair. But his shrewd ability to combine a progressive mindset with pro-business positions (and a proven track record as an entrepreneur, which is still a rare thing around Starmer) makes him an intriguing choice. That is, if he is approved from a short list to be appointed as a “permanent secretary for communications”: a new Civil Service role with sway over the way that the Government’s story is told across all government departments.
Jonathan Powell, Blair’s ex-chief of staff, is Starmer’s National Security Adviser while the eternal Labour consigliere Peter (Lord) Mandelson, helms the UK embassy in Washington. But the search for another big hitter to refine the Government’s message is also an admission that the habit of grafting veterans on to an unsteady central operation has not borne fruit. I have known Allan since 1994, and am an admirer of his no-nonsense way of assessing the relationship between the aspirations of centrist politics and the reality of managing business interests and external factors to consolidate the appeal of a government.
As one supportive think-tanker close to Allan put it after the welfare debacle, simply trying to govern by discipline is not enough. How can there be a joined-up way of looking at public services?
This is incoherent – and the more urgent delivery pressures become, the less the Government’s domestic strategy is comprehensible. Witnessing Starmer up close last week at his meeting with Germany’s leader Friedrich Merz, his strengths in handling choppy foreign affairs was on display: he has been able to inveigle Emmanual Macron, Merz, and this week India’s Narendra Modi to sign a trade deal his predecessors long pursued.
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When it comes to domestic affairs, we don’t. The centre-left and left fret about trying to deal with fiscal shortfalls mainly through benefit cuts. Overall, the message is a muddle between those saying the cuts are a regrettable emergency – and those (including Starmer) who claim reforms are necessary to shake more people out of the damaging habit of worklessness.
So yes, it’s easy to see how a savvy, well-connected returning figure with a track record in complex communication methods and leveraging a clearer message would attract Starmer – and he’d be lucky to get Tim Allan on board.Yet the fundamental things apply: Starmerism needs to be clearer in Starmer’s own head and heart about what it wants and what it doesn’t – and the summer months are the times to confront this task. All the crafted narratives, the message-carriers, the TikTok feeds and socio-economically targeted podcasts follow from a key understanding of the default setting of the leader. Without that, the tribute band will remain off-key, however great the production.
Anne McElvoy is co-host of Politics at Sam and Anne’s podcast from POLITICO and Sky
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