What has Labour achieved in its first 100 days in office?

Editor’s note: This article was written as the 2024 budget was announced.

The Starmer government has reached its 100-day anniversary, so how can we measure its progress? In 100 days in 1815, Napoleon Bonaparte won and lost an empire after the decisive battle of Waterloo. The Hundred Days Offensive was a series of Allied victories that led to the Armistice of 1918 which ended the First World War. In his first 100 days as President of the USA in 1932, Franklin D Roosevelt stopped the great depression from spiralling out of control and started the process that led to the New Deal. In 1933, Adolf Hitler became the German chancellor and within 100 days turned the democracy of the Weimar Republic into the totalitarian “Thousand-Year Reich”. So what has the Labour government achieved in its first 100 days in office?

Labour’s muted reception

What has changed, if anything? The somewhat ramshackle Sunak government was put out of its misery in July having been unable to rid itself of the calumny wrought by two of the most unsuitable prime ministers in living memory. The first, Boris Johnson, was an inveterate liar and unreliable booster of expensive and ineffective policies. His term in office was tested during the Covid pandemic and found wanting.

His successor Liz Truss lasted only 50 days in office but did so much damage to the economy that many voters withheld their support from the conservatives during the general election leaving them with the smallest number of seats since their formation in the 1830s.

The Labour party benefited from this disaffection by holding on to its vote and winning many seats with very low majorities. At 34.4% of the total vote, Labour cannot be said to have won an unassailable mandate but under the first past the post electoral system the winner takes all, or at least a majority.

The reception of Labour into government was muted, not least because the party was downbeat in its assessment of the future. Since being elected Labour has continued to be downbeat, referring constantly to a £22bn ‘black hole’ in the nation’s finances. Instead of hitting the ground running, there has been a hiatus while the nation waits on the calculations on tax and spending by the Chancellor, Rachel Reeves.

If you ask a minister or a Labour MP about government policy all one hears is talk about the black hole and the autumn budget. In the early days of a new government we should be hearing about the many reforms and changes which that government wishes to make.

Making changes, not improvements

Some things did trickle out such as a £21.4bn carbon-capture scheme and the employment rights bill. The first, as George Monbiot suggests, may become a white elephant project. The second is not universally popular with small employers and those seeking even greater reform in the trade union sector.

However, some carbon capture – or better still, carbon recycling – might be part of a balanced carbon reduction policy and a start on the pathway towards a future where employee and employer rights are more balanced. Both are a work in progress.

Britain has relied too much on low pay minimal employment rights and migration to sustain its economy. If we are to increase national productivity and grow the economy, more investment in capital equipment, education, and training is required.

Economists have been saying this for years, but expediency and opposition by some employers – with the Pimlico Plumbers case being an extreme example – has delayed reform. The P&O mass sackings scandal more or less forced the hand of the Starmer government to take action and this set of reform proposals is the least it could do in the circumstances.

This government appears to want to make the existing constitutional structures work more effectively rather than make wholesale changes. For example, the government is rejecting water nationalisation on the grounds of a flawed report suggesting that up to £99bn would be required to compensate water company shareholders. This does not take into account the substantial debt that these companies have on their balance sheets nor the likely deterioration in their share price if regulation and environmental enforcement measures are only a little more rigorous and effective than they are at the moment.

Where the government slipped up

The government made two mistakes. The first was the cut in the winter fuel payment except for those people on certain benefits. Pension credit and means testing are expensive and complicated, bureaucratic methods of alleviating poverty that are not as effective as they might be. £300 is too small an amount to offset fuel poverty and the process of who does and who doesn’t receive pension credit is based on the deserving and undeserving poor strategy that has tormented welfare policy for decades.

It is far better to work towards a state pension based on what is necessary to sustain a reasonable standard of living and then to tax income above that level as we do with earnings from work without all the tax-free lump sums and arcane calculations that are involved in pensions.

Better still is a rolling program of home insulation paid for by grants or low-interest loans which will save each pensioner more than the winter fuel payment. All the winter fuel payment does is subsidise the energy industry. A transition to green energy will reduce the fluctuations caused by fossil fuel price instability.

The second mistake was the controversy regarding Labour freebies. Since time immemorial, politicians of all varieties have benefited from soft loans, donations and handouts from party and corporate donors. Friendly donors have, in many cases, helped reduce money worries behind the scenes.

Further mistakes

In past eras, it was accepted that as long as the financial assistance did not become too scandalous, it could be known but not commented upon. In 2024 we have become more puritanical about such things; we are more divided and seek out the worst in individuals who we disagree with.

Journalists, who themselves have been known to accept freebies, are not averse to a bit of hypocritical mud-slinging. The Labour party did itself no favours in exposing every bit of sleaze it found relating to the previous government and now finds itself on the receiving end of a barrage of criticism.

The public is not beyond reproach either and must understand that politicians will seek additional forms of income if the wages of our politicians are relatively low.

The treatment of Sue Gray was a further mistake that could have been avoided if the role of chief of staff had been clearly understood by Kier Starmer and Gray herself. One cannot tell exactly why she was sacked as chief of staff, but claims of infighting, micromanagement and her own power within the party were reported.

This is of course an adult’s methodology, as opposed to the quick-fire, shoot-from-the-hip political response from her successor, Morgan McSweeney which misfired quite spectacularly over Labour’s policy on freeports where a non-existent increase in their numbers was announced by Starmer. Gray, with her deliberate, civil service way of approaching problems, would have stopped this embarrassing claim in its tracks and been conversant with the details.

Will Reeves deliver the changes we want to see?

Much is riding on the budget which I think has paralysed activity and thinking in government. A not overwhelmingly popular government, given by chance a large majority, has the means and the support of the British public to make the changes that so many wish to see.

If, after the budget, the unsatisfactory status quo continues in how we are governed and how the economy performs, this government may be dismantled at the ballot box similarly to its predecessor by an increasingly fractious and unhappy electorate.

If Reeves accomplishes a considered and well-received budget that delivers the improvements that the public mandated in the general election she will have finally given us the grown-up government we deserve, as opposed to the previous populist anarchy of the last 14 years under the Conservatives.