The party conference season confirmed a strange reversal in British politics. The opposition Labour Party is behaving like a ruling party while the ruling Conservative Party is behaving like an opposition—and not just any opposition but one that has just been humiliated by the electorate and doesn’t know where to go.
Labour leader Keir Starmer delivered a stolid speech that was carefully directed at reassuring nervous Conservatives. (The only bit of glitter was provided by a protester.) Rachel Reeves, his shadow chancellor of the exchequer, reassured the TV-watching public that she was a safe pair of hands — and brandished an endorsement from the former head of the Bank of England, Mark Carney. (Carney was recently named chair of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News.) The main auditorium was perpetually packed with cheering delegates who gave off a palpable sense that their time had finally come. The suit gap between Labour and the Conservatives, which had opened into a chasm in the Corbyn years, had almost returned to New Labour levels.
The Conservative conference could hardly have been more different. Rishi Sunak promised to overturn the past 30 years of supposedly disastrous orthodoxy— which, given that the Conservatives have been in power for the past 13 years, and that the last Conservative to try to overturn the orthodoxy almost brought the economy down with it, was an odd thing to do.
The auditorium was almost empty for the set-piece speeches, mostly used for taking a nap. The only energy was provided by people who want to seize Sunak’s throne: Suella Braveman, who warned about the evils of multiculturalism; Priti Patel, who danced with Nigel Farage; Kemi Badenoch, who seemed to be everywhere; and even Liz Truss, who, exactly a year after she crashed the economy and sent the mortgage markets into turmoil, held a packed “make Britain grow again” rally.
This was not a party that was concerned about wooing the median voter. Farage was greeted like a popular hero despite the fact that he’s done more damage to the Conservative Party, not to mention the country,than anyone living. Nor was it a party willing to learn from its mistakes. The shortest-serving prime minister in British history was treated like a rock star. It was instead a party consumed by leadership plots and ideological purity: the stuff of an opposition rather than a government. It looks as if the only Tory in the country who believes that the party can win the next election is Sunak himself, who is gripped by an almost manic energy.
It’s easy to think of power as a great lump that is handed over to the opposition after an unsuccessful election: thus Tony Blair “won” power in 1997. But, in fact, power is much more nebulous —it’s in a constant state of flux and movement—and it passes from one party to another in stages rather than in a one package. Unsuccessful governments see power draining away over months, or even years, while successful oppositions attract power to them.
British history provides dozens of examples of governments that see their power draining away even as they continue to go through the motions of ruling: the Conservatives in 1992-97, Labour in 1978-79, the Conservatives in 1963-64, Labour in 1950-51, and, if you want to be arcane, Lord Melbourne’s Whig government in 1841.
Norman Lamont got to the essence of what goes on when, after being sacked as chancellor over the European-exchange rate mechanism debacle in 1992, he described the Conservative government as “being in office but not in power.” The vacuum leads to a predictable set of problems: Interest groups try to bully the government, possible successors jostle for the media limelight, the country becomes listless, and routine difficulties can metastasize into crises. It also sees the initiative shift to the opposition that alternately harasses the government from day to day and sets the direction of the country.
Everywhere you look in Britain today you can see power shifting to Labour. Corporate types from Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. stalked the halls of the Labour conference in Liverpool but could hardly be bothered with the Conservatives. Lobby hacks are wining and dining Labour ministers they could hardly name a year or so ago. Civil servants hardly even go through the motion of putting Conservative policies into place.
The establishment is doing what it has always done, taking advantage of the inevitable. As Carney, who was appointed to lead the Bank of England by David Cameron, all but endorsed Rachel Reeves to be the next chancellor, he proclaimed that it’s “beyond time we put her energy and ideas into action.” Sue Gray, former senior civil servant under the last four Tory prime ministers, is now Starmer’s chief of staff. Max Hastings, the former editor of the Tory-supporting Daily Telegraph and the man who did more than anyone to make Boris Johnson's journalistic career (and a fellow Bloomberg Opinion columnist), announced that he would be voting Labour in the next election over the “dreadful” Tories led by a “loser.” If Starmer and Sunak were to go to Davos together, Starmer would be the one attracting the crowds.
Some of Starmer’s friends urge him to bring more passion to his cause. It’s not enough just to be a safe alternative to a dying party, they argue; you need to offer an alternative vision of a brighter future, a vision that goes beyond mere bromides (we support growth) and suggests a new way of organising the world. It’s not enough just to offer reassurance to people who are tired of disruption and incompetence; you need to give them something to cheer about. Safety first does not get people trooping to the polls.
This is nonsense. People do not want stirring visions of a new future after 13 years of disruption. They don’t want talk of revolutionary change. They want a safe pair of hands who can offer security in a dangerous world. Keir Starmer is doing exactly the right thing to win the election—remaining true to his dull, stolid, sensible self. Indeed, in many ways he has as good as won it. The Starmer era in British politics is already underway. All we need now is for the voters to ratify the shift in power.
Adrian Wooldridge is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. Views are personal and do not represent the stand of this publication.
Credit: Bloomberg
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