George Monbiot
@georgemonbiot.bsky.social1. The implicit deal behind Starmerism was this: you might not like what he stands for (or fails to stand for), but at least he knows how to win elections. If you want the Tories out, he’s your only hope.
But now? It’s as if he’s going out of his way to lose in 2029. 🧵
2. Labour will win in 2029 only if it has made a discernible difference to people’s lives, on crucial fronts such as housing and the NHS. That means, for example, major new provision of social housing alongside effective rent controls, and huge new public capital investment in the NHS, schools etc.
3. Instead, he is fixated on “market mechanisms”: trimming the public budget while relying on the private sector to deliver. If only we’d had 45 years of experience to show us what happens when you rely on the private sector. Then we might have an idea of how this is likely to pan out ….
4. We would know, for example, that the private sector will never release enough homes to allow prices to fall, and will always game the system to ensure that the promised social housing magically turns into “exclusive” developments of executive homes.
5. We would know that private finance initiatives are a terrible deal for the taxpayer, loading the NHS, schools etc with crippling debts, while delivering substandard facilities and services, and failing to meet public needs.
6. We would know that without massive public investment in the NHS and other essential services, waiting lists will only grow, and ever more people will be forced into private provision or no provision at all.
7. We would know that public austerity is the mother of false economies, simply transferring costs to citizens or to other arms of the state. This is why record public spending is coupled with systemic failure in public services.
8. And we would know that such policies generate massive disillusionment with the political process. We’d know that it’s one thing if the Tories do it, because people might then see Labour as an alternative. But if Labour does it, people then see they have nowhere to turn. Except to the far right.
9. So the extraordinary thing I’m seeing is that, when faced with a choice between appeasing corporate power and winning the next election, Starmer takes option one.