Lindsey German on Starmer’s austerity, Labour’s commitment to war and the racist hysteria against Carnival

There can be little doubt the first two months of Starmer’s government, with its huge majority and with the disarray of the Tories, haven’t gone exactly as planned. A smooth summer of ministerial announcements in the run-up to parliament’s return next week has been derailed by far-right riots scapegoating Muslims and migrants, widespread opposition to Rachel Reeves’ vicious removal of the winter fuel allowance for pensioners, and accusations of sleaze and cronyism in Downing Street.

Starmer’s default position is authoritarianism, hence his response to the riots was heavy prison sentences (something that can turn participants in a right-wing mob into hardened fascists) while refusing to even name let alone address the rise in Islamophobia, or to stop making the persecution of migrants a respectable political policy.

His lack of empathy to outcry over the attack on pensioners is going to cause him even more problems. Around 10 million pensioners will lose money at exactly the time when fuel bills are going up – with the blessing of the Labour government. Starmer is doubling down, declaring in a speech this week that things will get worse before they get better. But why should they get worse for working-class people who have already suffered a decade and a half of falling living standards?

The reason is simple: Starmer and Reeves refuse to do more than make cosmetic changes over taxing the rich, and so any burden of taxation will continue to fall disproportionately on the poorer sections of society. Reeves has a clear strategy of using a supposed ‘black hole’ in the economy to force through even more austerity on working-class people. So they will defend the two-child cap and the impoverishment of pensioners.

They also refuse to properly fund the health service which is on its knees, or to deal with the criminal behaviour of landlords who face no restraint over evictions and rocketing rents. Supposed solutions to the housing crisis consist of tearing up planning regulations and allowing the property developers free rein to build expensive houses. The big, privatised utility companies get a free pass as they jack up energy prices and continue polluting seas and rivers with sewage.

The opposition to the attacks on the poor come from the left but also from Labour’s right. And the right-wing papers like the Mail have adopted the fuel allowance issue as one to bash the government. Starmer would be foolish to think that the right, including Reform and the rump Tories, can’t build out of this issue, especially since they counterpose this cut to pay awards agreed with the unions.

Labour has the strange distinction of being a government with a very secure majority achieved on an incredibly low share of the vote and with Starmer’s own personal ratings falling since he took office. He has little political capital to draw on. No one voted for him to impoverish pensioners or to penalise those with more than two children.

He is digging a hole in the run-up to the return of parliament and the Labour conference in late September, where a lot of the anger over this will be expressed. But he is defending the indefensible. It is also clear from recent revelations that he is in hock to some of his rich donors, on whom he relied to garner funds as members deserted Labour following his successive moves to the right. Already the right-wing media and Tories are on his case especially over the Downing Street pass for Waheed Alli.

Tony Blair lost his reputation over his illegal and totally unjustified war in Iraq. But at least in 1997 his theme song was Things can only get better. Starmer is setting out to disappoint from the beginning. And the opposition to him is only going to grow.

Labour goes for growth…in warmongering 

Price inflation may be slowing, but Labour is letting inflation in warmongering rip. The conflict between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon has seen its worst since the 2006 war. Netanyahu has said Israel’s latest attacks are ‘not the end of the story.’ We can be certain of that. The Israeli government wants war and keeps trying to provoke it with Hezbollah and Iran. We are expected to believe the lie that Israel is only defending itself when it uses the most sophisticated weaponry backed up by US ships in the Mediterranean.

Labour has nothing to say about this except the weakest words of caution. Meanwhile, it seems to be doing its best to create a much bigger conflict between Ukraine and Russia. Britain, not the US, now stands accused of being a prime mover over the Ukrainian invasion of Kursk, and by the Times newspaper no less. Zelensky’s increasingly strident demands for ever more weaponry are encouraged by this government.

And we can be certain that Starmer’s commitment to increasing military spending to 2.5% of GDP will take priority over pensioners, the NHS and everything else. No wonder the arms companies are laughing all the way to the bank while people are dying in overcrowded A&Es.

Carnival: it’s the same old racist story

A new Labour government, growth in racism and time for scare stories about the Notting Hill carnival. The carnival is an immense and very popular event with 1 million attending on the streets of west London. Unlike Glastonbury, or the Reading or Leeds festivals taking place this bank holiday weekend as well, it always has a bad rep from the Metropolitan Police and papers like the Telegraph. Drugs, crime and violence against police are the story, not the large numbers of Afro-Caribbeans, as well as many other people from across London, enjoying themselves while listening to music.

The agenda behind this has always been racist, both from the police itself who attacked the carnival back in the 70s for allegedly being a haven for ‘muggers’ but also from the Tories and others who regard a street festival as disruptive to their highly gentrified homes and businesses. There are regular attempts to get it moved to a park – not one of the nearby royal ones of course, but much more proletarian Wormwood Scrubs.

Expect the racist narrative to grow in the days ahead, and for it to be taken up by Farage and co. And expect Starmer to be completely useless on it. It will be up to the left and the community to defend the right to be on the streets. Given the privatisation of so much public space it’s an important battle to have.

This week: I was very pleased to be invited to a celebration on Saturday over Julian Assange going free. It was lovely to see Stella Assange so happy after the years of torture they have gone through. All best wishes to them all in their new life. I’m on holiday this week in beautiful Italy with lots of books, including Christopher Clark’s major work on the 1848 revolutions, Revolutionary Spring.