A rudderless government – Why U-turns matter
Every government has made U-turns, and governments will continue to make U-turns, and I’m not oblivious to the fact that the last Conservative Government made its fair share of rollbacks, and every time Labour were quick to point this out.
Let’s not forget what Keir Starmer posted on then Twitter back in 2020: “to correct one error, even two, might make sense...But when they’ve notched up 12 U-turns and rising, the only conclusion is serial incompetence”.
So, you’d think that given their apparent objection to U-turns, when it is their turn in government, they’d do things differently? Well, you’d be wrong.
As it stands, at the time of writing (that bit is key), the current Government has racked up 13 U-turns, and when you start to look at what these were on, it appears Keir’s comments foreshadowed his own Government’s failings...
Perhaps one of their biggest blunders was the fact their manifesto said they “will not increase taxes on working people, which is why we will not increase national insurance”, and then proceeded to ignore that promise by increasing Employer’s National Insurance contributions. Then in a blind panic and misjudged approach, Labour rolled out the Chancellor who tried to claim this wasn’t a manifesto breaking U-turn because the term “working people” referred to employees, not employers.
Either way you look at it, it’s bad. On the one hand you have a government claiming people who own businesses are not working people, and on the other hand it’s a de-facto breach of their manifesto, or simply, a broken promise to their voters...
A mistake of this calibre is not only bad politically, but shows a serious lack of judgement, and the electorate pays attention to things like this.
Then, the morning after the Chancellor’s second disastrous Autumn Budget, the one that increased the tax burden to an all-time high, the Prime Minister insisted Labour had “kept to our manifesto” despite this gargantuan tax raid. In the same vein, he also asked “everybody to contribute”. So now we must ask ourselves, if employers are not working people, and ‘everybody’ are not working people, then who on earth was the promise not to increase taxes on working people aimed at?
Let’s also not forget that Labour’s manifesto promised to introduce protection from unfair dismissal “from day one” as part of their Employment Rights Bill, yet in November this was changed to six months for the requirement to claim unfair dismissal. Again, Labour tried to control the narrative, this time rolling out the Business Secretary, Peter Kyle, to try to deny this was yet another manifesto breach. Ironically, he followed up this up by insisting “compromise is strength”.
For once I agree with a Labour politician, compromise can be strength, but not when it’s a total climbdown of a flagship policy because they don’t understand business. We all know why they did it: in opposition Labour promised the world, but in government they’ve quickly realised their promises are not workable.
Now you can’t necessarily call a government weak for U-turning because of its own lack of experience, that’s just incompetence. However, when you look at the numerous other reversals they’ve made, the word weakness does certainly appear to be justified.
This Government has shown this weakness by bowing down to its own backbenchers over planned cuts to benefits, it’s defeat by the Conservatives on Winter Fuel Payments, and more recently their humiliation by Farmers securing a U-turn on Inheritance Tax Changes.
This all points to the same conclusion, that this Government can be defeated, and with every U-turn, it gets easier and easier.
So yes, as Mr Kyle said, compromise can be strength, but only if it’s done for the right reasons, but all of Labour’s U-turns so far haven’t been because of a ‘eureka moment’, they’ve been caused by a government without a backbone, and a complete inability to weather storms. Simply put, a rudderless government.
If I was a Labour MP, I’d be equally very worried about my chances in the next election, and upbeat that any major policy change I don’t like can be defeated with only the slightest bit of resistance.
Still as a Conservative MP, I say keep the U-turns coming, it’s good for business.
Mr Peter Bedford is the Conservative MP for Mid Leicestershire.
