Britain is heading for a Reform revolution if Sir Keir Starmer doesn't deliver his 'Plan for Change'

5 December 2024, 17:31

By Natasha Clark

@NatashaC

Sir Keir Starmer's Plan for Change announced a string of 'milestone' goals he says will hold him to account come the next election.

Six milestones, on top of five missions, three priorities... Are you keeping up at the back? Good.

Targets to drive down waiting lists, 1.5million new homes, raising living standards, and getting to clean power by 2030.

The politics makes sense.

Priorities that people care about, a speech setting out some of the detail, and clear targets to deliver.

Today marked an attempt to turn the page from a difficult budget, a summer of rows over freebies and winter fuel, filling in the £22billion hole, and the loss of key staff including Sue Gray.

So let's get on with it - and here's how we'll do it.

But the underlying message that the prime minister was hinting at today was clear - he knows he has to deliver (and fast) or he'll face the roar of Nigel Farage and Reform.

While he pleads with an impatient public to wait until the 67 reviews he's commissioned are done,

And with polling showing Reform's leader is seen as more favourable than Starmer, and a new survey from FindOutNow popping Labour into third place, it's clearly at the forefront of thought at the heart of government.

After just five months in office, Keir Starmer doesn't have long to put his Plan for Change into a plan for reality, or risk the critics of being a government unable, or unwilling to deliver the change that was promised.

Governing is hard. Government after government over the last 25 years have come to realise this.

That's why one of Sir Keir's most intriguing messages today was to the government machine.

In order to really create the change he's promised, a gear shift is needed.

Evoking the language of Donald Trump, he said Britain didn't need to "drain the swamp" but pointedly had a pop at them for being "comfortable in the tepid bath of managed decline".

The alternative, is a shockwave from the United States, the smashing apart of our political system, and the rise of populist politics where the only beneficiaries will only be Reform and Nigel Farage, offering more anti-establishment rhetoric, and few real answers.

This would come at a huge political cost - with trust in democracy at risk, and hung parliaments likely.

I fear that the prime minister's speech today did little to ignite the fire in bellies, the desire for change, and the vision needed to see this Plan for Change through.

So many of this government's promises are so similar to

If it were that easy to create growth, to boost the economy, to stop the boats, the government would have done.

But they haven't, or couldn't.

Some promises are the low-hanging fruit type we saw in Rishi Sunak's promise to get inflation down - living standards will rise, and getting more children ready to go to school is likely too.

Critics will attack these as easy to achieve and therefore pointless to promise.

On the other hand, they'll say vows to get to clean power by 2030, slash NHS waiting lists and be the fastest growing economy are too difficult to achieve.

The five pledges, middle-management, spreadsheets and KPIs strategy didn't work all that well for Rishi Sunak.And aren't these the kinds of big promises from 14 years of Tory rule that the PM is meant to be turning the page on?

Let's hope it works out a bit better for the next guy, or Westminster could return to exactly the kind of political chaos Keir Starmer promised to confine to history.

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