We are in the TL;DR days of Keir Starmer’s government. The latest Mandelson files stimulate nothing so much as an old and now immortally memed response to an online screed: “I ain’t reading all that. I’m happy for u tho. Or sorry that happened.” In any case, to save you the bother, I can report that there are only two hideously iconic moments in the latest files. The first, obviously, is Pat McFadden’s already viral verdict on Labour’s endlessly self-preserving and vision-free backbenchers – and perhaps those much closer to the heart of government: “Every meeting I have is: ‘Who can we tax in order to pay benefits to others?’” Yowch. New Liam Byrne note just dropped.
But the second is a much, much bigger problem than even that. The second might be the deadliest, most emblematic thing in the entire files dump. It is no more than 10 words but when I read it yesterday afternoon, I slumped back in my chair struck by the absolute state-of-the-nation of it. I thought: that’s it. That is literally the whole of where we are as a country, and the whole scale of the task of how on earth we get out of it. It is both staggeringly shocking and wholly predictable. I’m not doing a trigger warning or anything, but I will say it comes in the section of emails about Trump wanting to be gifted one replica ministerial red box during the state visit last year. Anyway, here goes: “the manufacturer gave a lead time of 8-10 weeks”.
Oh my God. “The manufacturer gave a lead time of 8-10 weeks.” That is EVERYTHING right there. You, the government, want to procure a briefcase and it’s going to take two months. No wonder you can’t build a train line that goes anywhere. Can you imagine your last email of the day in China being the commission of a bespoke briefcase? You’d have to warn the manufacturer not to wake you up in the middle of the same night to say it was already done. Can you imagine putting in the request in India? Same thing. Heaven knows the United States has its problems – most particularly the guy we’re buying the briefcase for – but if anyone thinks for one second it would take even eight to 10 days to get this thing in the US then I’ve a huge order of do-me-a-favour I’d love to sell them. And don’t worry – it’s ready immediately.
Forgive me singling out the red box, because of course we all recognise that these are beautifully handcrafted and unique artisanal products etc etc, and I get that. But so what? This one needed doing. It could be done. It’s a special case that was a special case. Even if it was for a headcase. That, I’m afraid, is not the point. The overall picture is that the UK is being left for dust by countries in which it does not actually take forever to do things because that’s just the way it is.
I see the red box manufacturer’s website states: “The company’s history is interwoven with the history of the United Kingdom.” God bless them, but that feels unintentionally accurate. At this stage in our national story, when ambitious nations are on turbocharge and we really need a thing to be done – maybe even in a slightly accelerated and out of the ordinary way! – it still takes between eight and 10 weeks. Sorry mate, I’d love to help, but … reasons.
So, on with the seemingly endless death rattle of the Mandelson scandal. If only email drops and procedure-mining select committee hearings were a pathway to growth. Yet as discussed here before in a Mandelsonian context, relitigating what now amounts to diminishing returns of Westminster gossip via document dumps is not going to save the country. Peter Mandelson’s gone and Starmer will be gone soon enough too. If, indeed, he was ever really there. So absent are the alleged prime minister’s opinions and aims for his government in the latest files release that it is hard to imagine Starmer has ever even been meaningfully present. The French author Georges Perec once wrote an entire novel without using the letter e. A Void, as it’s titled in translation, reads indefinably eerily if you don’t know the conceit – and somehow even more so if you do. To read this latest dump of government correspondence is to get an overpowering sense that Starmer is the e of this government. He is simply not there. And that’s very, very weird.
Starmer ushered in his government declaring that kickstarting economic growth was its number one priority, and that his would be a mission-driven administration. Yet it appeared to have spent absolutely no time in opposition working out how to achieve that priority, or what that mission would practically involve. Almost two years in, it is impossible to think of a single thing the government has done that has had the effect of increasing growth – supposedly its central policy. It is regrettably possible to think of a number of things it has done that have hampered or depressed growth.
Britain needs housing and infrastructure and incentives to massive capital investment. It needs planning reform and public and private investment in innovation and tech. It needs a coherent and remorselessly pursued industrial strategy. It needs enough money, ideally generated by the above, to vastly improve public services and pay much more for defence in a dangerously reordered world. And all that is just the start of it. Yet where are the realistic answers? The country’s problems will not be solved by any of the incredibly thin plans offered so far by either Andy Burnham or Wes Streeting (the two Labour contenders we currently know want to lead it). A red briefcase, but make it Manchesterism? Growth, but summoned by a retro New Labour cargo cult? They might all sound like nice ideas – but would probably take between eight and 10 weeks to be exposed as just the further absence of them.
