From the start Keir Starmer and his ministers were so focused on blaming their predecessors for leaving a £22bn black hole that they relaxed their pre-election grip on trying to influence and manage the news agenda. Unlike the early months of the Blair government, when Alastair Campbell immediately imposed tight control over the government’s information service, the incoming Starmer administration paid little attention to attempting to forestall potential attack lines from the Tory press.
Their first 100 days in office left the prime minister and his colleagues looking bruised and battered, their authority dented by mis-handled announcements and an entirely self-inflicted scandal over political freebies. A succession of embarrassing revelations about a wide array of personal gifts ranging from clothing to free tickets for Taylor Swift concerts created a whirlwind of confusion and backbiting within the Downing Street machine which left Starmer with little alternative but to dispense with his chief of staff Sue Gray.
The knives are out for Rachel Reeves
Rachel Reeves is the first high profile casualty, wounded by an unrelenting and hard-hitting offensive by titles from the Daily Express, Daily Mail, Sun and Daily Telegraph which are campaigning for a U-turn over her surprise withdrawal of the winter fuel allowance from millions of pensioners.
Finding ways to sustain an assault on what is claimed to be the unfairness of the chancellor’s hasty cut in public spending is in the DNA of these newspapers. Reeves’ timing played into the hands of the Tory press: a subsequent hike in energy prices and mounting fears about the impact of a cold winter have succeeded in generating news lines that can refashioned time and again in the months ahead.
Once in campaigning mode, re-working a running story with a new angle and a fresh splash is standard practice for tabloid newspapers. While their scare tactics failed to cut through during the general election campaign, the saga over the potential for hardship among pensioners has become a damaging talking point.
Alarmist front-page stories inevitably attract attention during radio and television press reviews and reproduce well on screen and on social media.Reeves’ plight recalls the anguish of a newly installed Conservative education secretary who was forced to impose drastic spending cuts required by the 1970 Heath government. “Thatcher, Thatcher Milk Snatcher” was the gibe that haunted Margaret Thatcher after she ended free school milk for the over-sevens – a decision which years later she admitted had caused “a terrible row” from which she still recoiled.
While the press attacks on Reeves have not reached – so far – the same level of personal vitriol, her image has taken a knock over a self-inflicted and damaging furore which could have been averted.
The winter fuel cut – a mistimed miscalculation
Labour has no convincing answer to the charge that within three weeks of taking office it selected pensioners as the least deserving of support when ministers were busy signalling hefty wage increases in the offing for train drivers, junior doctors and other public sector workers.
The Treasury has admitted that when Reeves announced that winter fuel allowance would be limited to those on pensioner credit, no assessment had been made about the impact on the other millions of pensioners not in receipt of additional support. There had certainly been no impact assessment as to how this decision might be turned against Labour by their traditional foes in the Tory press.
They were determined to put Starmer through the wringer after the washout of their efforts during the election.
Reeves should have been advised that any move to cut winter fuel allowance should have been left to her first budget when it could have been presented as part of an overall package and when moves might have already been made to increase the uptake of pensioner credit and the benefits that go with it.
The power of the press and the unions over Labour
Labour’s vain hope that any backlash might subside over the summer was entirely misplaced. Press readership is weighted heavily in favour of the elderly. A “crusade to save winter fuel payments” for pensioners was a no brainer for the Daily Express which has regularly given over its front page to warnings of the “cruelty of allowing OAPs to freeze in the winter”.
From the very next day after her announcement the attack lines could not have been more direct: “It’s a targeted attack on those who’ve devoted their working lives to nation” (Daily Express) … “Mugging grannies? That wasn’t in the manifesto” (Daily Mail )… “Winter is coming” (Sun).
Compounding Reeves’ discomfort was the government’s inept handling of the 14% three-year pay settlement for train drivers. No sooner had the transport secretary Louise Haigh agreed the deal than the drivers’ ASLEF announced a fresh series of Saturday strikes on LNER. Before signing it off, surely Haigh should have insisted that a condition of this settlement was that it cleaned the slate of any outstanding disputes.
Her department must have known that ASLEF’s executive and membership are renowned for their solidarity and independence and proud of their reputation as the trickiest of trade unions. There was relief all round when ASLEF called off the LNER strikes, but the headlines wrote themselves: Labour had given in to its union paymasters while punishing pensioners.
Given the Conservative Party’s preoccupation with its leadership election, Labour might have hoped for a political honeymoon.
Such is the firepower which can be marshalled by Tory newspapers, only too willing take up the reins amid the Conservatives’ disarray about their future direction, there is still no escaping from the Blair government’s mantra that before making an announcement ministers must take into account from the start the kind of adverse news coverage their policy decisions might attract.
Morgan McSweeney – a new hope?
Starmer and his team have been reminded in no uncertain terms that the task of minimising media misrepresentation requires a disciplined approach – and not just during an election campaign.
Morgan McSweeney, who maintained such a tight grip on Labour’s general election tactics, has taken over from Gray as chief of staff. The challenge he faces in trying to get a grip on the government’s grid of future announcements is all the greater given the close proximity of Reeves’ much-awaited budget on Wednesday 30 October.
A first budget tends to be a defining moment for a new administration, and no more so than for Starmer and Reeves. In recent years most newly elected governments have presented a budget within around two months from assuming office. Labour is taking twice as long which is partly to blame for a lack of direction over so many critical policy decisions.
Arch enemies in the Tory press seized the moment and did their best to fill a confused and empty space by fuelling and sustaining anti-Labour narratives which have shocked and dismayed the party’s members and supporters.
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