Labour Party
Rishi Sunak Says His ‘Plan is Working’ But Voters Don’t Believe Him
Three quarters of voters do not believe Rishi Sunak's claim that his "plan is working" for fixing the UK economy, findings from a damning new poll for Byline Times suggest.
The British economy entered recession at the end of last year, according to official figures published earlier this week.
The figures revealed that the UK has gone through its longest period without economic growth per capita since the 1950s.
In the wake of two massive by-election defeats on Friday morning, the Prime Minister again insisted to reporters that “our plan is working” and he can “give everyone the peace of mind that there is a better future for them and their families”.
However, a new poll conducted this week for this paper by pollsters We Think found that 73% of all those surveyed do not agree that the Prime Minister's plan is working, with even one-in-three Conservative voters disagreeing with his claim.
The poll also suggests that voters have little faith in the ability of the Prime Minister to provide the “better future” for them and their families that he promised this morning.
Asked which of the two main parties would be most likely to make them personally financially better off, just 26% of those surveyed picked the Conservatives, compared to 48% who picked Labour instead.
Both Sunak and Starmer Seen as Flip-Floppers
The findings come after a tumultuous week for the Labour Party following revelations about antisemitic comments made by its candidate in the upcoming Rochdale by-election. Keir Starmer was accused of failing to act quickly enough in the wake of the revelations, before ultimately disowning his candidate.
However, while the Conservatives have sought to use the row as further evidence that Starmer is a “flip-flopper”, our poll reveals that voters are actually marginally more likely to see the Prime Minister in these terms than the Labour leader.
Asked whether they saw Sunak as more of a flip-flopper that decisive, 64% of voters picked the former over the latter. This is actually slightly more than the 61% who said the same of the Labour leader.
Voters were more split on the subject of Starmer’s decision to abandon his £28 billion green growth plan, with 54% saying it was the right decision compared to 46% who disagreed.
Three Worst Prime Minister of Modern Times
We Think also asked for the public’s overall view of recent Prime Ministers since Margaret Thatcher and the findings suggest that voters’ are least enamoured with the most recent occupants of Downing Street.
Among all those surveyed Liz Truss came top with 34% saying she was the worst PM of all those listed, followed by Boris Johnson on 22% and Rishi Sunak on 13%. The three most recent PMs were followed by Thatcher on 10%, Tony Blair on 8%, Theresa May on 6%, Gordon Brown on 4% and David Cameron on 3%.
Asked which was the best of the listed Prime Ministers, Thatcher came top with 24%, followed by Tony Blair on 21%. However, despite being picked as the second worst prime minister, Boris Johnson was also listed as the overall third best by those surveyed, showing how polarised opinions are about the former PM.
Rishi Sunak’s ‘Austerity Bombshell’ That Westminster Won’t Talk About
Today’s news that the UK went into recession at the end of last year is even worse than the headline figures suggest.
Although the UK economy officially shrank by just 0.3% in the last quarter, that figure fails to take into account the big increase in the country’s population over that period, due to high levels of immigration.
Once you take that into account the UK’s performance is far worse. According to today’s figures, GDP per person - which shows the real impact of the economy on individuals - actually fell by 0.6% over the last three months of 2023.
It gets even worse when you look beyond the last quarter. According to today’s data, the British economy has not grown at all, per person, for almost two years. This is the longest period without per capita growth in the UK since 1955.
The longer term picture is even worse than this, with the UK’s economic growth a huge 24% lower than it would have been had we remained on the same growth trend we were on before the financial crisis.
There are good reasons for this extended period of stagnation. A decade of austerity, Brexit and the coronavirus pandemic have all contributed to what has been the biggest real-terms fall in living standards in the UK since records began.
So given this grim outlook, you might expect that the Chancellor would be talking about bold plans to finally kickstart the British economy after 14 years in Government.
This is not what’s happening. Instead the Financial Times today reports that Jeremy Hunt is considering plans to make even bigger cuts to public spending after the next general election than those he has already set out.
According to the paper, "economists have warned that current plans for a 1 percentage point increase in public spending until 2029 are a “fiction”, as they would imply serious real-term cuts to some stretched public services.
"But people close to Hunt said Treasury officials were considering going further and reducing projected spending rises to about 0.75 percentage points a year, releasing £5bn-£6bn for Budget tax cuts."
This plan, which is predicated on the political desire to offer voters a series of pre-election tax cuts, would leave many of Britain’s already crumbling public services under the threat of complete collapse.
Now you might expect that such plans would trigger big public debate about the future of the economy and public services.
Yet despite Hunt’s slash and burn agenda already being signalled months ago in his Autumn Statement, these plans for a big new wave of austerity have so far received next to no coverage in the British press, outside of the FT, with most papers instead focusing on an endless debate about taxes and borrowing.
This focus, which has culminated in the Labour Party last week rowing back on its own plans to kickstart growth in the UK, is wildly out of step with what the economy needs and what the public actually wants. According to recent polling for Byline, voters in all parties now prioritise investment in public services over tax cuts.
Yet instead of having a big debate about actually investing in the UK’s stagnant economy, while restoring Britain’s failing public services, both major parties in Westminster remain focused on the same sterile debate about ‘balancing the books’ and ‘fiscal rules’ which helped lodge the British economy into its current slump in the first place.
The truth is that unless this changes, Britain's lost decade of stagnant growth and low productivity will only continue well into the future.
Labour Backs Leveson-Style Press Reforms in Commons Vote
The Labour Party, which had recently shown signs it might abandon altogether the pursuit of reform of the media, has this week renewed its support for Leveson-style press regulation, albeit in low-key fashion.
In a House of Commons debate on the Government’s plan to scrap the last element of the Leveson reform scheme left on the statute books, Labour members voted for an amendment aimed at preventing complete repeal.
Shadow Culture Secretary Thangam Debonnaire, setting out her party’s position, told MPs: "We on the Labour benches want a press that is regulated in a way that makes it accountable for its reporting and that meets the highest ethical and journalistic standards."
Labour members then voted in favour of an amendment tabled by rebel Conservative MP George Eustice which aims to keep alive the Leveson scheme to encourage news publishers to participate in effective regulation that is both independent of the industry and free from political interference.
In terms of parliamentary procedure, it was the least that Labour could do in relation to reforms it had backed strongly, under successive leaders, ever since the Leveson Inquiry into the culture, ethics and practices of the press, which followed the exposure of the phone-hacking scandal, produced its recommendations in 2012.
At issue was section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act, which provides incentives – ‘sticks and carrots’ – for the press to join a Leveson-standard regulator. Though the Conservatives voted for it in 2013, successive Conservative governments have refused to implement it and, in a sop to its press friends, Rishi Sunak's Government is now trying to repeal it altogether.
Whether it can be repealed before a general election is uncertain after this week’s Commons vote – the Lords must now have their say – but for those in favour of better press regulation and of press reform generally, it is the position adopted by Labour, as the prospective next government, that is most important.
Had Labour abstained on the Eustice amendment, as it had shown signs it was preparing to do, it would have meant the abandonment by the party of even the most cautious aspiration to challenge press power – a cause that has strong support on the party’s backbenches.
The Liberal Democrats and Scottish National Party also supported the amendment.
Explaining Labour’s position on the Eustice amendment, Debonnaire told the Commons: "The majority of British journalists are decent and honourable, but there are some who even now continue to drag the good name of that profession into disrepute. That profession is a cornerstone of our democracy and it is important that the public are able to trust it, but at the moment we are at risk of the public losing faith in the profession of journalism, as was certainly also the case before section 40 was created and before that scandal was exposed."
Read the debate here, starting at column 749.
Brian Cathcart is a journalist, academic and campaigner. He was one of the founders of the Hacked Off group for a free and accountable press and which campaigned against the repeal of section 40
Labour’s ‘Intensely Relaxed’ Approach to Bankers’ Bonuses Tells Us a Lot About a Starmer Government
“Today - in the midst of their cost of living crisis - the Conservatives are scrapping the cap on bankers' bonuses", Labour’s Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves complained last October, adding that Sunak's decision to go ahead with removing the limit on pay “tells you everything you need to know about this Government".
Yet fast forward just three months and Reeves now appears to agree with the Prime Minister.
Speaking to the BBC, Reeves insisted that she has "no intention" of reinstating the cap, which she suggested would prevent her from being the “champion of a thriving financial services industry”.
In some ways Labour's latest U-turn is not terribly surprising, coming as it does in the same week that it positions itself as the "new party of business"
Yet if Sunak's decision to scrap the cap three months ago told us "everything you need to know" about his Government, what does Reeves' belated support for maintaining that decision say about a potential Labour Government?
'Morally Bankrupt'
Attempting to justify the decision on Wednesday, Labour spinners insisted to Byline Times that the Shadow Chancellor had only ever suggested that scrapping the cap should not be "a priority" for the Government.
In other words, Reeves' opposition to scrapping the cap was not one of principle, but merely of timing.
This is rather misleading. In reality Reeves had instead long portrayed the decision to scrap the cap as a basic issue of fairness.
Responding to Sunak's decision to push ahead with scrapping it, Reeves told MPs in 2022 that “at a time when he is urging wage constraints for everybody else, how can he remotely claim that that is fair?”
She added that while, "he is asking working people to take the hit... if you are a banker, a non-dom or a private equity manager, do not worry: Scrooge has not cancelled your Christmas."
Other parts of the party went ever further, with Labour's leader in Scotland, Anas Sarwar saying that scrapping the cap was not just “economically illiterate” but “morally bankrupt”.
Sarwar stood by his previous description today, telling reporters in Westminster that “I am not going to shift my view on that.”
"I'm not here to defend bankers' bonuses" he added.
'Intensely Relaxed'
Not everyone in the party will have been as unimpressed with the about-turn, however.
Watching on from the House of Commons gallery today, as Sunak mocked Starmer's U-turn, was the former Labour Business Secretary Peter Mandelson, who once famously suggested that their party should be "intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich" (as long as they pay their taxes).
For Mandelson, who still advises the Labour leader despite questions over his own associations, Reeves's comments will likely have been received as a welcome sign of a changed party.
Asked what the U-turn said about a potential Labour government, a spokesperson for Starmer added it showed that the party was now "focused on stability and certainty” for business.
Yet the problem with the party's newly-relaxed position on filthy rich bankers, is that by always prioritising business "stability" over economic fairness, the party risks boxing itself in should it form the next government.
As both the International Monetary Fund and Institute for Fiscal Studies confirmed this week, the Conservatives' current spending plans imply big and unsustainable cuts to public spending over the coming years.
In order to avoid the collapse of basic public services that would inevitably follow, an incoming Labour Government would therefore have to either increase borrowing, raise taxes, or both. And with the general public already suffering, the pressure to balance those tax rises on those who can most afford it will be hard for the party to avoid.
Yet by largely ruling out such moves, while insisting that their priority is instead about ensuring that bankers can continue to fill their boots, Labour is risking making the position they will inherit from this Government even trickier than it currently looks.
Opponents of the bankers' bonus cap point out that it was a mostly symbolic measure. There is little evidence to suggest that the cap actually reduced the total amount of compensation received by senior bankers, nor that it significantly altered their risk-taking behaviour.
But at a time when the rest of the economy is being told to "show restraint" in demanding pay rises, the obscene levels of pay still being banked by the financial services industry, should be hard for any Government, let alone a Labour one, to justify.
Yet by putting winning the support of big business leaders ahead of issues of economic fairness, Reeves and her party are making it clear exactly whose interests they are now prioritising.
Wales’ Potential First Minister Backs Rejoining EU Single Market and Calls for ‘Honest Conversation’ on Impact of Brexit
The frontrunner to become Wales’ next Labour First Minister has backed rejoining the EU’s single market and said he will be advocating “strongly” for that position with Sir Keir Starmer if Labour win the next General Election.
Jeremy Miles, who was Wales’ Brexit minister from 2018-2021 and is now one of two candidates standing to become the nation’s next leader, made the comments in his first interview with a UK-wide outlet since kicking off his campaign last month.
Miles, Wales’ education minister since 2021, is one of the most senior Labour figures to call for a far closer relationship with the European Union - and joins figures like Sadiq Khan in highlighting the damaging effects of Brexit. Sir Keir Starmer has often seemed reluctant to discuss Britain’s departure from the EU since being elected Labour leader.
Asked whether he thought Brexit played a role in the recent announcement by Tata Steel to slash thousands of jobs in Port Talbot, Miles urged the company to wait for a Labour government before making any major decisions - adding: “I absolutely think it is important that we're talking about the facts on the consequences of leaving the European Union.
“We spent a lot of time ensuring that we prepared Wales for departing…Every day, it became ever clearer just how damaging leaving the European Union would be, in the way that we had predicted during the campaign.”
Speaking to Byline Times via video link from Cardiff, he called for an “honest conversation” with the public about the consequences of leaving the EU. “We see it in our economy. We see it in our society. We see it through the loss of structural funds to Wales. I think Welsh people's understanding of the impact has changed.
People are recognising just how serious the adverse effects are to Wales and the UK, and just how weak the alternatives are which this Conservative Government are advocating.”
Miles, who faces Wales’ health minister Vaughan Gething in the Labour contest, pointed to the spate of trade deals from the UK Government, “none of which go anywhere near the ability to make the loss to the UK economy of not having that closer trading relationship with the European Union.”
Asked what arrangement with the EU he’ll be pushing for, Jeremy Miles said he supported “the closest possible relationship” with the European Union, telling Byline Times rejoining the EU’s single market “would be a positive thing for Wales and the UK.”
The EU Single Market consists of the bloc's 27 member countries, along with Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway, which participate through the European Economic Area agreement. Its aim is to ensure the unrestricted flow of goods, capital, services, and labour, - the so-called "four freedoms." Being a member again would require the UK to sign up to common rules and regulations, designed so that member states do not undercut one another.
Sir Keir Stamer has said he wants a closer relationship with the EU - but has explicitly rejected rejoining the EU single market and customs union.
Miles added that rejoining the single market “would enable us to make up for a lot of the damage that we've seen in our economy” - and could come as part of a “bespoke set of discussions” between an incumbent Labour Government and the European Union.
Devolution Overhaul
The landmark Gordon Brown review into devolution, published in 2022, was commissioned by the Labour Party and sets out a plan for overhauling the UK’s constitution. It was welcomed by Keir Starmer - but its proposals, including scrapping and replacing the House of Lords and a radical transfer of powers out of Westminster - have not yet been formally adopted by the leadership.
Miles is clear that Keir Starmer needs to back the plans, telling this paper the Brown report is “the plan which we need to take forward.”
“It is very pragmatic and recognises that these things need to be done in a step-by-step way. And that is what will happen when we have a Labour Government that the Keir Starmer.”
Pressed on whether Sir Keir would actually implement the changes, the Welsh Labour contender said: “I’ve not discussed it directly with him. But he commissioned from a very authoritative figure, a former prime minister, and it sets out a very particular set of next steps on the devolution journey for Wales and also across the UK…I'm confident that an incoming Labour Government will recognise that.”
Miles has been bruised by dealing with the Conservatives at Westminster, telling Byline Times: “I had an awful lot of experience with Boris Johnson and subsequently, governments trying to step into devolved areas.”
Like most Welsh Labour politicians, he wants devolution to go further, and to be protected in law. For him, that would involve a “fairer funding mechanism” for Wales. Currently the so-called Barnett formula is the basis for Wales’ funding from Westminster, but it is based on a proportion of spending in England.
The education minister also hinted that the Sewell Convention - which notes that areas where policy is devolved shouldn't be over-ridden by Westminster - should be put into law.
Miles is backing a new package of powers including devolving policing and justice to Wales, alongside the administration of the benefit system. That could allow Wales to scrap or adapt the strict sanctions regime pushed by Conservative governments over the past 14 years.
It is another issue that puts Welsh Labour potentially at loggerheads with Labour in Westminster. The UK party has appeared to rule out devolving policing and adult criminal justice. Speaking to the BBC last week, Shadow Welsh Secretary Jo Stevens said the party would be focusing at the next election on "the things that matter".
Other options Miles is exploring include handing over Wales’ share of profits from the Crown Estate, managed by the monarchy but whose proceeds mostly go to the UK Treasury. Since the Crown Estate controls the UK’s seabed, it benefits from billions of pounds in offshore wind licences every year.
“As we expand our offshore renewable sector, that will become increasingly important and valuable, and it's right that Wales should benefit directly from that,” Miles said.
25 Years of Labour
Labour has been in Government in Wales for 25 years, since the very start of the Welsh Senedd (then called the Assembly).
Asked if that was too long for a party to be in power, Miles said: “The Labour party isn't stagnant…[but] we absolutely do not take for granted the support which we've been able to win from people in Wales over the last quarter century.”
He admitted however that the next Welsh elections in 2026 will be “challenging” for Labour. “Every election becomes more challenging than the last, the longer you are in.” The next section will be fought with a larger Senedd and a different electoral system, as Wales replaces the mixed member system with a fully-proportional closed list.
He was confident the next elections would happen in “the context of a Labour Government in Westminster” - and therefore a “very different” scenario to now.
The final two candidates - Jeremy Miles and Vaughan Gething will be announced at 4pm today (29 January). The ballot of Welsh Labour members and affiliates opens on 16 February and closes on 14 March, with the result announced on 16 March.
Do you have a story that needs highlighting? Get in touch by emailing josiah@bylinetimes.com
‘Media Bill Votes Will Show Us the Real Keir Starmer’
Votes in the House of Commons tomorrow, 30 January, will tell us a great deal about the kind of Labour Party Keir Starmer intends to lead into this year’s general election and the kind of government he envisages beyond that.
With the Government’s Media Bill reaching its report stage, Labour must choose whether to back amendments which would keep alive the possibility of Leveson-style reform of press regulation – or to do nothing and allow the Conservatives to bury it for good.
The choice it makes will tell us whether it hopes ultimately to govern the country on an independent agenda or whether it has decided to let billionaire press owners continue dominating the country’s politics by their familiar unscrupulous means.
The Leveson Inquiry – into the culture, practices, and ethics of the press – took place following the exposure of the phone-hacking scandal in 2011-12. It made a number of recommendations.
Until now, Labour policy has been pro-Leveson – a position that goes back beyond the Jeremy Corbyn years to when Ed Miliband was leader. But it is also a policy feared and hated by the big national newspaper groups.
In recent months, all the body language of the Starmer leadership has suggested it is now ready to appease the billionaire owners of the Mail, The Sun, The Times and the Telegraph, evidently in the short-term hope that they will give it a softer ride in election coverage.
The precise issue tomorrow might seem obscure: whether to repeal section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act of 2013 – a piece of legislation which, thanks to the unscrupulous blocking tactics of the Conservatives, has never been allowed to enter into force.
Section 40 is the key to making the Leveson reforms of press regulation work. It was designed to make possible independent, effective press accountability of a kind that the UK has never known. More than that, it would also give press journalism unprecedented protection against bullying by the rich and powerful.
Murdoch, Lord Rothermere and the Barclay family fear press accountability like nothing else – because their newspapers simply could not function as they currently do if they were truly answerable for inaccuracy, distortion, intrusion and other ethical misconduct.
If Starmer’s Labour abandons a decade of commitment to Section 40 tomorrow, therefore, they will be giving the press what they want: licensing the big national newspapers to continue abusing ordinary citizens and misleading the public as a whole.
And everything suggests that that is Labour’s intention.
Not only has it failed to table any amendment relating to repeal of section 40 (and amendments are what the parliamentary ‘report stage’ is all about) but the party leadership has dropped heavy hints that it will not even support weak amendments tabled by others.
You might say that it does not matter, since the Conservatives have the votes to get what they want whatever Labour does, and that may be so. But the position Labour takes on this will send a clear signal to Fleet Street and to the public.
Appeasing the press is not merely a tactic for getting through an election. It will show that Labour is ready to accept right-wing press influence over its policies when it is in government.
Only a fool could imagine that the Murdoch and Mail papers do not intend to bully and hound a new Labour government, no matter how big its majority. Only a fool could believe that they do not intend to use all their unscrupulous methods to force Labour’s hand on Europe, on welfare, on climate change, on refugees – on their whole bigoted, selfish agenda.
If Labour takes them on, if it makes them responsible to an effective, independent regulator, it will be able to govern in the interests of the public – in other words, of ordinary people. If it does not, it will have its arm twisted permanently behind its back by the press billionaires.
And it would be naive and wrongheaded to imagine that Labour might duck the issue now but turn around and take action on media abuses after it has been elected, without a manifesto mandate. British politics does not work that way.
Tomorrow’s votes will tell us a lot.
Huge Majority Believe it’s ‘Time for a Change’, But Most Think Keir Starmer Isn’t Offering it
Eight out of ten voters say it’s ‘time for change’ at the next general election, but only a minority believe Keir Starmer will deliver it, according to a new poll commissioned by Byline Times.
Pollsters We Think asked UK voters whether they believe it is now “time for a change” at the next general election. They found that an overwhelming majority of 79% of voters now believe it is, compared to just 21% who disagree.
Even those still planning to vote for the Conservatives appear to believe the country needs a new direction, with 40% agreeing that it is time for change, compared to 60% who do not.
Yet despite the apparent demand for change, voters have doubts over whether Keir Starmer and the Labour Party will be able to deliver it.
According to our poll 57% voters agree with the statement that there is “little real difference” between Labour and the Conservatives compared to just 43% who believe that “Labour is offering real change”.
These doubts extend to views of Starmer himself.
According to our survey, fewer than half (45%) of UK voters believe a Government led by Keir Starmer would be "significantly different" to one led by Rishi Sunak, with 36% believing it would be "broadly similar" and a further 19% unsure.
Even many Labour voters have their doubts about Starmer’s ability to deliver change according to our poll, with 29% saying they believe a Starmer administration would be broadly similar to one led by the current Prime Minister.
These doubts are also shared by current Conservative Party voters, who are split down the middle on whether Starmer would really mark a significant break from one led by their own party. Fewer than half (43%) of Conservative voters believe a Starmer Government would be significantly different from a Sunak Government, with 40% believing it would be broadly similar.
While voters are clear that they want change, they are much more split on whether any change in strategy is required from the Labour leadership in order to demonstrate this. According to the poll voters are split on whether Labour’s current approach is too cautious (14%), too risky (17%) or about right (39%).
They are similarly split on whether Labour opposes the Conservatives too little (18%), too much (19%) or get the balance about right (39%).
The sentiments picked up in the poll are also shared by voters in focus groups, according to Luke Tryl, who conducts regular sessions around the country for the organisation More in Common.
"One of the things, aside from headline results that I'm most interested in about the next general election is what turnout will be like and whether it will be a very low turnout", Tryl told Byline Times.
"Because people just don't aren't enthusiastic at the moment. They broadly want change but they're not sure that change is on offer."
By-Election Frenzy: Kingswood Labour Candidate Damien Egan on Public Services in Freefall, Upping Sticks, and Starmer’s Purse Strings
Damien Egan wasn’t expecting to migrate South West for a few months yet. He was still Mayor of Lewisham when he saw the news: Kingswood Conservative MP Chris Skidmore had quit Parliament over the Government’s plans to ramp up oil and gas licences in the North Sea.
That has triggered an early, February by-election in the Kingswood constituency, the South Gloucestershire seat set to be abolished at the next election - in other words, later this year.
Egan, who grew up in Bristol but moved to Lewisham after graduating, had been directly-elected Mayor of the South London borough for nearly six years. Skidmore’s resignation came as a "complete surprise," he told me. “I had to resign immediately.”
Skidmore, for his part, made headlines not merely for his dramatic departure - but the fact it seemed to be one of the few resignations of this parliament that was on a point of principle.
It offered a contrast to the lobbying, lying and sleaze scandals of Owen Patterson, Chris Pincher, Boris Johnson, Peter Bone and others on the Government benches. (Egan confirms to me that he will not take a second job if elected - moonlighting has brought down several desperate parliamentarians recently).
The 41-year old had already been selected as a candidate for Bristol North East, which overlaps with the departing Kingswood seat.
Does Egan respect his departing opponent’s stance? "Yes, and there's been a lot of people who have commended him” - including Labour MPs. But the “cost of the taxpayer” does come up on the doorstep, Labour’s candidate said. “There are people who think: ‘you could have voted against things in Parliament. You didn't necessarily have to call a by-election right now.’"
But the campaign has now become a full-time job for Egan, and perhaps too for Sam Bromiley, the Conservative candidate who is also group leader on the formerly-Tory run South Gloucestershire Council.
Unsurprisingly, Labour is keen to ram home the rising cost of living - and the perceived breakdown of public services. Access to dentistry is a big deal in Bristol - far more so than London, Egan says.
“Everybody here is impacted by doctors and dentists appointments…There's no dentist in Bristol, who is accepting new NHS patients. In the whole of Bristol,” he says.
The dentist he used growing up in Kingswood now charges £20 pounds a month to stay on the books as an NHS patient, Egan claims. “You'll get a check up with that as well. But it's expensive. People are recognising that they're not just paying more tax but then they're still having to pay for the extras. And the extras here become: going to the dentist.”
On the first night of the campaign, it was snowing. He spoke to a woman and her 16-year-old son. They've still got an NHS dentist, but they can't get an appointment. “She's just medicating her son on pain relief tablets. It feels like Victorian times,” Egan adds.
GP appointments are similarly hard to come by, with the 8am phone line rush still cutting off people’s access to primary care. “I don't think it's a lot to ask for. Just go to the doctor, to go to the dentist. People just want the basic things sorted out.”
That feeling of slipping backwards as a country is pertinent. Egan says many of the women where he grew up are doing “exactly the same work that my mum would do” - shop work, caring, being dinner ladies and so on. “But they’ve got a lot less money.”
The feeling of decay, too: the high streets left to wither. “Kingswood High Street is the place that people go to…It [used to be] a proper town centre.”
There’s a “beautiful” historic clock tower on that drag. Last year it had its 100th anniversary. “The thing is, it's got weeds hanging out of it. We’ve lost a feeling of pride, and people are connecting that with the Conservatives having been in power for 14 years. You can't deny it,” he adds.
And yet, Labour offers feel thinner with each apparent rejection of spending commitments. The party says it is committed to tough fiscal rules, and there is talk of Sir Keir signing up to Conservative spending plans. The deprivation Egan sees around Kingswood will be hard to tackle without extra cash - and that doesn't seem to be forthcoming from Keir Starmer, does it?
“People understand it,” Egan counters. “Honestly, people have told me that they don't want Labour to be making lots of promises that they can't fulfil, and be reckless with the economy. People saw what happened with Liz Truss. Look what happened to mortgage rates.
“They want a government that is going to be cautious with the economy and focus more on how we grow the economy. And that actually seems to be going down better than saying ‘right we're going to increase taxes and fund X million in this, X million in that. People don't want to hear that.’”
Is saying “no” a message that can inspire hope? It seems each time Sir Keir opens his mouth there are accusations of a policy u-turn - including the apparent watering-down of the commitment to spend £28bn a year on green investment, amid a right-wing backlash. Do people have hope that Labour will change things for the better?
“I haven’t heard about u-turns, but people understand that as we get closer to the election, more detail will get spelt out. People are really looking at what's going to be in the manifesto," Egan tells me.
They’ll have to keep waiting past this by-election. In the meantime, his focus, he says, is on promoting growth - new, well-paid jobs and an industrial strategy for industry, and trying to get his hands on some Levelling Up funding for the area if elected.
February 15’s vote will be one of the first where those without photo ID will be turned away and denied a vote. Is Egan worried it will harm his support?
“We get the numbers on people who are turned away, but you never know how many people don't have an ID. I've spoken to older people who might not have a driver's licence or might not have had a passport for a long time.
You might have some younger ones that don’t drive in and might not have a passport yet.” He is asking voters awkward questions: “Where's your passport? Where’s your driving licence?”
Whatever happens with this by-election, or the General Election later this year, Egan appears to have ditched London for good. He is sticking around for the long haul, he says:”For me, this is a relocation. I’m closer to my family. My sister's got a two year old and an eight month old baby. My nan is 88. I’m going to be home.”
Do you have a story that needs highlighting? Get in touch by emailing josiah@bylinetimes.com
Labour’s Andy Burnham Says Just ‘50 People Run the UK’ as Mayor Hits Out at Westminster and Sunak’s Scrappage of HS2
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Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham has called for a new, codified constitution for the UK to wrench power out of Westminster, as he hit out at a tiny clique running British politics.
The Labour metro-mayor backed overhauling the scandal-ridden unelected second chamber, as well as introducing proportional representation for the House Commons, as he remotely addressed the Democracy Network conference in London on Wednesday.
The calls go significantly further than Labour Leader Keir Starmer is currently offering.
Burnham, who is writing a book on the state of UK democracy, said: “Look at the COVID Inquiry… It is showing people how dysfunctional the running of our country is. Because of the whip system, and the way we run things, I would say no more than 50 people run this country at any given time.
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“In effect, Parliament hands a lot of power to the executive, and it's a mixture of mainly unelected [people] but also a group of Cabinet ministers who run the country at any given time.
“I would argue that it is dysfunctional in normal times. It's downright dangerous in a pandemic. And that is what we saw. We saw decisions being hoisted out onto the country without consideration of the local impacts without consultation.”
The former Labour MP was outspoken on Boris Johnson’s Government during the pandemic, which he said locked regional and devolved governments out of decision-making and discussions on pandemic responses.
“It was awful," he told conference attendees. "On what basis was Greater Manchester not represented on COBRA [Cabinet Office emergency briefings]? We were never invited once to attend a COBRA meeting… It can't be justified. So [we] need a new set of rules for how the country works and who sits where and whose voice is heard, and how decisions get made.”
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Burnham was particularly scathing about the short-termism of the current Westminster political system – singling out Rishi Sunak’s recent decision to cancel the Northern leg of HS2 from Birmingham to Manchester.
“The entire Government came to the city from where I'm talking to you from now for their party conference and allowed a rumour mill to get out of control around the scrapping of a rail project that we were promised 10 years ago [HS2] when George Osborne first delivered his Northern Powerhouse speech.
“Even though they were in a hotel yards from us, they ignored repeated requests from myself and the Leader of Manchester City Council for a meeting, or at least a discussion about something that had massive implications for us and cost implications for us as well.
“To stand up in our city and then just tear it up in our face – should any government be allowed to do that? Should you be able just to unilaterally, without consultation, rip up something of that magnitude, given that a rail project like that goes beyond the life of any government or Parliament? I honestly don't think you should be able to do that.”
The Mayor added that a written constitution would “codify” relationships between national, local and regional governments “so that democracy functions properly, it's wired properly, and decisions are made with due consideration of different perspective”.
Elsewhere at the conference, Labour’s Shadow Minister for Democracy, Florence Eshalomi, appeared to row back from Starmer’s 2022 commitment to abolishing the House of Lords, telling Byline Times it should be “partly” but not wholly elected.
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Also at the Democracy Network conference, Daniel Bruce, CEO of Transparency International UK, suggested that the UK's honours system was corrupt. He told attendees that if a political party tells a company “donate £2 million and we’ll give you a seat in the Lords" it’s illegal. However, he explained, these kinds of promises are not formally written down, so parties get away with it.
Compass think tank director Neal Lawson also told the conference on Tuesday that the current leadership of the Labour Party is “implacably opposed to proportional representation” because they "know there’ll be new parties and they won’t be able to dominate. They are not going to allow it to happen. They will have to be forced".
Lawson branded Labour’s approach to elections – including its failure to back electoral reform – akin to “an abusive relationship, with members and voters who have nowhere else to go".
For Dr Hannah White, director of the Institute for Government, it is “very hard to see” how proportional representation would happen anytime soon, since the policy “won’t be in [Labour’s] manifesto”. But she said the movement for PR in the party is prominent and growing.
Dr White added that parliamentary scrutiny has fallen off a cliff in the past decade. She told the conference that the Government’s flagship Rwanda Bill – which may breach international law – would have been subject to 20 or so scrutiny sessions in committee, going through it line-by-line, if it had been proposed 20 years ago. Now it is being pushed through with just a few days of debate, she said.
Akiko Hart, interim director of human rights campaign Liberty, told the Democracy Network conference that sentences for non-violent protests are becoming ever harsher, with some hitting three years. “The whole point of protest is that it’s meant to be disruptive," she said. "But it’s being used as a wedge issue and amplified by the media.”
However, several speakers were optimistic about the prospects for democratic change under a new government, with a potential for a renewed focus on standards, and vibrant campaigns pushing for political reform.
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Labour Appears to Steer Away from Fully-Elected House of Lords Despite Cronyism Scandals
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Labour’s democracy spokesperson has suggested that the party would not opt for a fully-elected second chamber to replace the House of Lords, amid growing scandal over the UK’s honours system.
Florence Eshalomi, Labour’s Shadow Minister for Democracy, told the Democracy Network conference at the University of Westminster on Wednesday that she was “going through” the findings of former Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s recent commission into the future of the House of Lords, which recommended comprehensive reform of the unelected chamber, including the option for a fully-elected Senate of the Nations and Regions.
Eshalomi said: “There's some exciting things there… Some of the appointments in the House of Lords [show] you can get appointed depending on who you know now – it's not on merit. It's not what you've done, and that needs to change.”
The London MP said that Labour would “call for an elected House of Lords” if elected this year. However, she subsequently backtracked, adding the party would “make sure that the House of Lords are representing the regions and the nations” and would want to ban hereditary peers. Hereditary peers make up around 90 of the 800-odd peers in the chamber.
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Asked to clarify her comments about calling for an elected House of Lords, she told Byline Times that Labour would push for a "partly" elected second chamber, rather than a fully elected one.
Labour’s position on reforming the House of Lords has been met with considerable interest amid cronyism scandals under the Conservatives, with donors frequently given seats for life in the Lords. Questions regarding the Lords have only increased in recent weeks in the wake of reports about the disgraced PPE ‘Fast Lane’ Conservative Baroness Michelle Mone.
Eshalomi suggested that Labour would strengthen the independent House of Lords Appointments Commission, which vets potential appointees: “It's not right that outgoing ministers are able to elect people based on who they know. There needs to be a lot more scrutiny on that and I think that's a key area that will bring about the change."
But she was clear that she opposed “abolishing” the House of Lords: “Having taken my first bill committee through Parliament last year, [I saw] the work that the Lords do is really beneficial and really important.”
It conflicts with a pledge by Sir Keir Starmer in December 2022 when, speaking of his party, he told Sky News: "We do want to abolish the House of Lords."
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The Labour frontbencher also expressed her opposition to mandatory voter ID, which will have its biggest outing yet in this year’s General Election.
“No one asked for the introduction of voter ID," she told delegates. "Yet it's been done to them. A lot of people also won't be aware that their postal vote has changed and they'll suddenly find that they are now off the postal vote [register] because you've got to reapply every three years.”
Pressed on whether Labour would scrap voter ID by Byline Times, Eshalomi did not confirm that the party would abolish the rules. “I've raised this on a number of occasions with ministers directly in the chamber," she said. "In terms of voter ID and what we are doing, Labour is still reviewing the feedback from the Electoral Commission, and speaking to a number of groups.
"I think we have to push the Government… What's the impact going to be on a general election?... No legitimate voters should be locked out of voting and that's what's happening. So is this system really worth it? That's something that I will be pushing with my colleagues for us to really investigate and look into more.”
A Labour spokesperson appeared to row back on Eshalomi's comments on the Lords, telling lobby journalists after her speech: "Our position on House of Lords reform hasn't changed from what we've said since the Gordon Brown report came out. The position is the one that we have set out previously." What that reform will look like is currently unclear.
With additional reporting from Adam Bienkov.