Keir Starmer has – please try and contain your excitement – announced his eleventh campaign slogan since 2022. A spoon-fed exclusive in The Guardian this morning sets out Labour’s local elections plan, including “new regional organisers, a bigger digital operation & slogan ‘Build a Better Britain'”. A cursory look into the history of this generic, focus-group-created tag reveals that Sir Keir has given up pretending he’s not playing word-for-word from the Tony Blair playbook.
Labour’s 1997 manifesto forward promised that saw Blair write, “I am confident about our future prosperity, even optimistic, if we have the courage to change and use it to build a better Britain.”
In 1998 Jack Straw’s Home Office published a ten-year strategy to tackle drug misuse, entitled “Tackling Drugs to Build a Better Britain”
Starmer himself has been floating the slogan since September 2021, having written a Guardian op-ed promising “Labour will build a better Britain for working people”.
For those of you wanting a reminder of all Starmer’s slogans so far, Guido’s happy to oblige…
- His leadership campaign: Another Future Is Possible
- July 2020: New Management
- Labour virtual conference 2020: A New Leadership
- February 2021 economic speech: Secure, Protect, Rebuild
- February 2021: A New Chapter for Britain
- June 2021 Manifesto policy review launch: Stronger Together
- September 2021 conference: Work, Care, Equality, Security
- January 2022 relaunch with ‘patriotic contract’: Security, Prosperity, Respect (Starmer managed to forget this one mid-speech)
- Local elections 2022: On Your Side
- Labour conference 2022: Fairer, greener future
- Local elections 2023: Build a better Britain
Strong pub quiz round…
Given Sir Keir spent most of PMQs yesterday blaming the Tories for “breaking” the NHS, and praising New Labour for “getting people to see a doctor in a couple of days”, Guido’s reminded of what the public actually thought of the NHS in the Blair years. Here’s how a BBC audience reacted in 2005, when it was pointed out that Labour’s headline-making 48-hour GP targets often saw appointments denied or their acceptance pushed back, just to artificially meet those waiting time targets. T’was ever thus…
Tony Blair speaking to the News Agents Podcast:
“I always say to people at least the Labour Party had the decency to have its nervous breakdown in opposition”
The usual blowhards like Alastair Campbell and James O’Brien like to claim that Boris was the worst Prime Minister of all time. That’s not a view reflected by the public. According to data compiled by Britain Elects and published by the New Statesman, during his premiership Boris never reached the depths of unpopularity reached by most of his recent predecessors as PM. Tony Blair was more unpopular before he left office, Gordon Brown was far more unpopular during his tenure and Theresa May sunk lower in popular esteem than ever Boris did. Of recent PMs only David Cameron was less negatively perceived at his lowest point. Dave didn’t have the almost universal and unforgiving disdain of the europhile chattering classes against him though…
Eyebrows were raised in Downing Street over the weekend after the publication of a story in The Sunday Times that Boris had looked into having a £150,000 treehouse built for son Wilf at Chequers. The story – undisputed since publication – goes he had once again entered into discussions about Lord Brownlow forking out for the cost, however plans were eventually scuppered by police security concerns given the house would be visible from the road. Despite the design including bulletproof glass, which raised the cost significantly…
Guido was amused to learn that Downing Street’s eyebrows weren’t raised by the Sunday Times’s story, instead by Labour MPs’ attacking the plans on the grounds of Boris being out of touch. Vauxhall’s Florence Eshalomi, Rhondda’s Chris Bryant, Wallasey’s Angela Eagle, and Hull’s Karl Turner were all among those laying into the PM.
No. 10 sources wryly note, however, that it wasn’t that long ago when it was a Labour PM splashing huge wads of cash to renovate Chequers – without a whimper of controversy. In 1999, one Tony Blair added a luxury tennis court complex to the PM’s Buckinghamshire residence, something since enjoyed by successive MPs including David Cameron and Boris Johnson. Sources in the know tell Guido that the courts weren’t built using public cash, nor did they come out of the Chequers Trust, implying the extortionate costs either came out of Blair’s personal pocket, or a private donor. Given Guido unfortunately can’t make it to Blair’s big centrist jamboree today, perhaps an on-hand hack might like to raise the question of who paid for the courts…
Blair should feel proud that he more than any other British politician manages to get so many excited and involved in politics. In 2003 a million marched against Iraq, and almost 20 years later one million have once again signalled they’re prepared to protest against Tony Blair. This time over his knighthood…
A Change.Org petition, originally set up to have Blair’s Knight Companion of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, has been renamed as a “Rally against Tony Blair’s Knighthood ‘honour'”. 1,159,529 users are signed up to it.
“His policies have touched most of our lives in some way and it is almost always negative.
And now, on 13th June, he will be awarded one of this nation’s highest Honours by Her Majesty the Queen.”
“On Monday, 13th June, a gathering of like-minded people is to be held in Windsor, where Tony Blair and the world’s press can witness precisely what the people of this country think about this award. Where people can stand up and be seen by the world’s press voicing their feelings and sending our message that we do not consent to this ill-deserved award.”
The protest near Windsor Castle is officially organised by Stop the War, who are yet to march on the Russian Embassy. What are the chances the protest also has a significant republican element?
