The problem with Labour’s fiscal promises

It is remarkable that in his conference speech in Liverpool, Sir Keir Starmer hardly mentioned the government’s biggest failures. There is burgeoning public debt, caught in a feedback loop by soaring gilt yields. It didn’t even feature. We have persistent inflation but although Starmer mentioned the ‘cost of living’ crisis several times, he missed out the vital word ‘inflation’. There are ever-increasing levels of illegal migration and a failed pledge to ‘stop the boats’, but again not a squeak from him.

There is a reason why Starmer would avoid mentioning these things, even though the Conservatives’ record provided him with ample ammunition. These are all issues on which, historically, Labour has been weaker than the Tories. Mention deficits and excessive borrowing and it will remind voters – older ones, at least – of Gordon Brown’s eventual loss of fiscal discipline, or of Denis Healey’s trip to the IMF. Likewise, inflation, which topped out at over 25 per cent in Harold Wilson’s government and had to be reined in by Margaret Thatcher’s monetarism.