Keir Starmer’s bid to smash the class ceiling

This is an audio transcript of the Political Fix podcast episode: ‘Keir Starmer’s bid to smash the class ceiling’

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Sarah Neville
We’ve got waiting lists at record levels. We’ve got crucially every single target being missed by incredibly wide margins. The apparatus to require better performance in the NHS is just very much weaker than it was, and the resources are very much less than they were.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Lucy Fisher
Welcome to Political Fix, your essential insider guide to Westminster from the Financial Times with me, Lucy Fisher, the FT’s Whitehall editor. You heard there, my colleague Sarah Neville, talking about the NHS as it celebrates its 75th anniversary. More from her later. Also coming up on the pod this week: could the Tories be facing a fifth by-election as the standards committee recommends an eight-week ban for Conservative MP Chris Pincher? And we’ll take a look at Keir Starmer’s plans to smash the class ceiling.

With me here today are FT columnists Robert Shrimsley. Hi, Robert.

Robert Shrimsley
Hey Lucy.

Lucy Fisher
And Stephen Bush. Hi, Stephen.

Stephen Bush
Hi Lucy.

Lucy Fisher
First of all, what’s been on both your minds this week? Stephen?

Stephen Bush
So I think my moment of the week was a fundraising email from the Conservative party. Now, I desperately try to be on as many mailing lists as possible to see what the parties are saying to and about one another. But this one was fundraising or saying we need your support to keep Just Stop Oil at bay, which I just found so funny, partly because I and indeed the five members of the Conservative party who helpfully forwarded it to me not knowing I was on the mailing list anyway, all had the same question, which is, I’m sorry, I Just Stop Oil at bay? They seem to be very much not at bay.

Robert Shrimsley
But the Tories are going in so hard on this you almost wonder if there’s a pressure group Just Start Oil they want to get behind.

Lucy Fisher
But I’m interested that Keir Starmer on Thursday rode in pretty heavily against them too, you know, accusing them of arrogant tactics. It does feel like he understands that being pinned as being joined somehow to Just Stop Oil and what the Tories called the climate extremists is dangerous for Labour.

Robert Shrimsley
Well, I mean, but I don’t think he’s gonna fall into that trap. It’s clear that you’re right, the Tories are trying to do that. But Labour understand that specifically people won’t tolerate Just Stop Oil disrupting them when they’re trying to get to work or their kids to school. He clearly knows which side of that argument he needs to be on, and he also knows that people don’t have that much patience for them disrupting great sporting events, which seems to me exactly what protest groups do. It’s not a difficult one for him. And I think he’s just got to make sure he doesn’t show too much sympathy for them, even while supporting a cause which Labour does want to associate itself with.

Lucy Fisher
Robert, what’s been on your mind this week?

Robert Shrimsley
OK, well, I’m going to go into deep wonkery.

Lucy Fisher
(Laughs) Great.

Robert Shrimsley
I spent the week looking at something that’s been handed to government. It’s called the Maude review. It’s by Francis Maude. It was commissioned a year ago to look at how the civil service could be reformed to be more responsive to the needs of government. And this is something that every government has done going all the way back to Thatcher or beyond, well then, well beyond Thatcher. So it’s been a time-honoured frustration for ministers. Anyway, he put his proposals into the Cabinet Office, which will publish them in due course. He’s got some quite interesting ideas, including yet again splitting the cabinet secretary from their role as being head of the civil service so they can focus on a strategic centre for the prime minister while someone else gets on with the job of reforming the civil service and also turning this obscure organisation called the Civil Service Commission into something of a beefed-up regulator that will now hold departments and the senior officials responsible for delivering the ambitions of government. As he put it once in an article, the civil service can’t be neutral about delivering the government’s programme. So I think it’s one to watch. And even if it isn’t enacted before the election by this government, he’s rather gifted a blueprint to the next government, whoever they may happen to be.

Stephen Bush
What’s your moment of the week?

Lucy Fisher
Mine’s not, well, I suppose it is a moment, and it’s the launch of the app Threads and I can’t quite decide whether I want it to succeed or for just sort of social media of the sort of instant message board kind to die. Stephen, I saw you’re already on it. I’ve taken the leap and joined and I’m sort of in two minds. I think Twitter for me is dead and I’ve sort of given up using it. It just doesn’t function well. But there’s also a part of me that thinks it leads to groupthink. And in the news gathering business, it encourages reporters to sort of follow what each other are doing too closely. In some organisations, it encourages news editors to sort of see what other news organisations are doing, and I think it has had a sort of corrosive effect on political news gathering, in a sense.

Robert Shrimsley
I’m gonna go, I absolutely love Twitter and I’m on it all the time and I’ve made friends through Twitter and found out tons of things through Twitter. And of course it’s maddening in a dozen ways. But, you know, I’m actually, I, although I have also logged on to Threads to make sure I have that piece of real estate if I need it. I sort of hope Twitter can find a way to survive, even though I’m dubious. But I mean, you know, that Threads have been talked of as a Twitter killer. And of course, there is a Twitter killer out there and he’s called Elon.

Lucy Fisher
Yes. (Laughs)

Stephen Bush
Yes. It’s, I enjoy Twitter similarly and I will miss it if as I think I mean, the central problems of he’s overpaid for it. He doesn’t quite seem to understand the value proposition, and he’s made it much less user-friendly. Those seem to be hard things for it to escape. The intriguing thing about Twitter, right, is it was like it combines the sort of republic of letters, of people talking globally about politics with the actual moneymaking proposition, which people who want to follow LeBron James or Gary Lineker. And Threads, I think, is much more fun if what you want to do is follow big-name celebrities or influencers. And when you’re posting your own material, you feel like you’re, I’m just being bathed in adoration. But what you don’t seem to get is the interesting back and forth and discoverability.

Robert Shrimsley
To be fair, it’s day one. I mean, (laughter) everybody is like everyone’s arrived, like, hi, I’m at the party, what’s happening? Oh, nothing yet.

Lucy Fisher
Yeah.

Robert Shrimsley
But I mean, maybe.

Lucy Fisher
That’s it because my other question is no, going forward now, if I want to, you know, broadcast to a grateful nation, do I write it both on Twitter and Threads. That just seems so egotistical. I’m also aware that, you know, Mastodon, Bluesky Social, they had a lot of sort of high . . . 

(Overlapping talk) (Laughter)

Stephen Bush
I mean, you’re in a studio with two columnists.

Robert Shrimsley
Yeah, quite.

Lucy Fisher
Yeah, quite.

Stephen Bush
I mean what is this “too egotistical” that you speak of?

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Lucy Fisher
Well, let’s move on then. Labour’s Keir Starmer has been laying out his vision for one of Labour’s five missions. This week the focus was on education.

Keir Starmer
I see this mission as our core purpose and my personal cause. To fight at every stage for every child, the pernicious idea that background equals destiny. That your circumstances, who you are, where you come from, who you know, might shape your life more than your talent, your effort, and your enterprise.

Lucy Fisher
So we’re at the end of the marathon and to my mind, quite tortured tour of Keir’s five missions. Quiz question — can either of you name all five missions?

Robert Shrimsley
Well, that’s the question. Depends on whether you’re going to ask me to do so. If you’re not, then yes, I can!

Lucy Fisher
OK.

Robert Shrimsley
If you are, then I might struggle.

Lucy Fisher
OK.

Stephen Bush
Yeah, I think. I hope I can name them.

Lucy Fisher
Shall I save you both? 

Robert Shrimsley
The economy, the environment.

Stephen Bush
So highest growth within G-7, that’s one of the missions . . . 

Robert Shrimsley
Childcare for all, yes.

Stephen Bush
So I’ve done one. You now need to do . . . 

Robert Shrimsley
The green economy.

Lucy Fisher
Yes, you’re right. It’s generate the high sustained growth in the G7. Got that, Stephen. Make Britain a clean energy superpower. We’ll give you a point for that.

Robert Shrimsley
Opportunity for all.

Lucy Fisher
Opportunity for all.

Robert Shrimsley
Hand him that one.

Lucy Fisher
Builds an NHS fit for the future and make Britain’s streets safe. So on Thursday, Keir Starmer unveiled this final one about opportunity for all, introducing, I think, many people to the awful word oracy. But it is important, isn’t it? The art of speaking well with clarity and fluency, Robert.

Robert Shrimsley
I thought the speech in general was a pretty reasonable one. And as you say, oracy is not a great word, but the point he’s making is an important one, which is that, you know, people from a more privileged, more comfortable, happier, wealthier background are taught how to present, how to argue, all those interpersonal skills that help you succeed in the job market and in life. And everybody should have those opportunities. And I think that’s a good argument and one he should make. And I thought it was a lot of reasonable stuff in the speech, although as always, it’s still very aspirational. There’s a lot of stuff in there. I still find myself saying, great, but people have fought this for a long time.

Lucy Fisher
Yeah. Stephen, what did you make of it? There was lots of ideas about shaking up the curriculum, the creative arts or sports till 16.

Stephen Bush
There were lots of, I thought, really interesting ideas in there, but almost all of their aspirations when you get right down ’cause I will presume this involves quite a lot of money.

Lucy Fisher
Mmm.

Stephen Bush
Because one of the other interesting things talked about being I think you’re probably the eighth politician this decade to talk about ending the snobbery towards vocational degrees.

Lucy Fisher
Mmm-hmm.

Stephen Bush
Well, the biggest manifestation of the snobbery towards vocational qualifications, or at least some vocational qualifications. Arguably, Keir Starmer, a lawyer, has a vocational qualification, is the . . . we don’t fund them adequately, right? You can talk about the value of those things in the abstract as much as you like, but unless you’re willing to put money on the table, you don’t really, I think, get the parity of esteem that so many politicians have talked about in the past.

Robert Shrimsley
I do think the skills argument, though, is gaining traction because you have the competing forces. You do have an academic snobbery, which we’re probably all guilty of as well, of you know, I want my children go to university and get that sort of normal middle-class aspiration. But up against that is this growing tension now, which is, well, I also want my children to have a job and a job that pays well. I want them to be successful. And I think the government and the opposition for that matter are winning the argument that’s beginning to say, well, if that’s what you want, you are gonna have to think about this a little bit harder. I think you’ll begin to see a lot more apprentice degrees and some combination of the university experience and proper skills training. So I do think economic reality will help governments win that battle.

Lucy Fisher
I was interested in the way that Keir Starmer was sort of politically positioning himself. He sort of quoted Michael Gove with approval, saying, you know, he’d been on to something . . . 

Robert Shrimsley
As we all do.

Lucy Fisher
As we all do. Criticising the soft bigotry of low expectations for poor children. He also took the opportunity to sort of slightly criticise Tony Blair, sort of for failing to eradicate snobbery about vocational education, as you mentioned, Stephen. So I thought that shows maybe that Keir’s wanting to sort of mark himself out as his own man a bit more after being sort of tainted perhaps with the label of Blairite and being a bit in hock to some of Blair’s advisers.

Robert Shrimsley
I think there’s a bit of that, although, of course, actually this speech was virtually written by Peter Hyman, who was Tony Blair’s adviser for a very long time before going off into education. So I think he’s probably still in hock a fair amount. And I saw Peter Hyman setting out some of these arguments at the last Future Britain conference. The Blair Institute there’s another one coming shortly. But I think what it really shows is just how much broad political agreement there is on most issues in Britain now between the Labour party and the Conservative party. Obviously, there are significant differences around things like rights at work and the Green agenda. Broadly speaking, these two parties are pushing in roughly similar directions, which is why there is so much ferocity around the areas where they do strongly disagree, be it immigration or some of the things we refer to as the culture wars. But I think there is a pretty broad consensus around education and skills. And both parties are saying not wildly different things.

Lucy Fisher
Yes, an interesting point. And Stephen, I was struck by all the starry names Labour had to wheel out today. Damien Hirst, Steve McQueen, Microsoft’s vice-president, the entrepreneur and crossbench peer Martha Lane Fox all endorsing Starmer’s plan.

Robert Shrimsley
Every one of them an apprentice.

Lucy Fisher
(Laughs) Quite. But it does feel like Labour’s getting this momentum now. People want to be associated with the party in a way that you just can’t imagine the Conservatives who by turns are pretty much toxic as a brand.

Stephen Bush
Yeah, I mean, it’s a classic example of nothing succeeds like success, right? In a different context, we’ll be talking about this speech and going, OK, right? So the Labour party has belatedly fallen back in love with its own schools reform agenda. You know, they’ve praised Gove, accepted that he, Adonis and Blair were right. You know, yadda yadda, yadda. They’re in retreat. But because they’re so far ahead in the polls, because the Conservative party seems to kind of basically spend most of its time either comatose or in crisis, people go, wow, and they want to be associated with it. And there’s a kind of, you know, a buzz around it because, yeah, people like to be associated with winners. But as much as the thing I was struck by today about the content, actually just the aura of Keir Starmer is a winner and people want to be associated with him is a really useful asset to have if you’re an opposition party.

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Lucy Fisher
Well, Steven, Robert, stay with us. We’re joined now by Sarah Neville, the FT’s global health editor, who wants to discuss with us the NHS marking its 75th anniversary this week. With more strikes in the offing, of course, and a service at Westminster Abbey.

David Hoyle
The NHS was and still is, a glimpse of the new heaven and the new earth that is promised. It’s the community of loving service that we dream about.

Lucy Fisher
That was the dean of Westminster. So, Sarah, now I want to put you slightly on the spot here, if I may, and ask you to give us a bit of a health check on the NHS. We know it has major structural problems. But what’s your prognosis for it going forward, let’s say over the next decade and in particular for its founding principle of providing care that’s free at the point of use?

Sarah Neville
Well, first of all, I’ll give you full marks, Lucy, for referring to its anniversary rather than its birthday. We’ve had a lot of very anthropomorphic sentimentality this week around the notion of an inanimate entity celebrating a birthday. And I think one of the most striking things for me this week has been how little conversation there’s been about what the NHS can afford to provide in future, because at the moment it is in a parlous state. I mean, every sort of quote unquote, “big birthday” that I’ve observed the NHS celebrating, there’s been, you know, at least the occasional prediction of its demise because the mismatch between demand and resources is so enormous. But I think that’s never been clearer than it is for this 75th anniversary. We’ve got waiting lists for hospital care at record levels. We’ve got crucially every single target being missed by incredibly wide margins. It’s actually the best part of 10 years since some of the most important targets, the most important targets for us as patients, were met. The idea that we’ll be seen within four hours of arriving at A&E, for example, that hasn’t been met since 2015. So I suppose what I often think about is how very different this period is from the Blair years, when similarly the health service reached a crisis point that was becoming intensely politically damaging for Blair. There was a very emblematic story of an elderly lady whose cancer surgery had been delayed so many times that she was unable to have it and she died. And it was that that focused Blair’s mind so much that he promised to raise health spending to the level of the OECD average, famously without telling his chancellor Gordon Brown about it in advance.

But the big difference, I think, in what subsequently happened was, firstly, that there was much more money pumped into the health service. The health service, as we know, is relatively well favoured compared with other Whitehall departments, but is still receiving increases significantly below the historic average. But the other key thing in the Blair years was these targets. It was famously a regime described by one distinguished health policy expert as “targets and terror”. And these targets were, as that indicates, rigidly enforced. But now these targets are honoured, you know, far more in the breach than the observance. I think the sort of the apparatus to require better performance in the NHS is just very much weaker than it was, and the resources are very much less than they were.

Lucy Fisher
And can I ask you, since you bring up Blair and he seems to be dominating at the podcast today, but one of the things he has taken this opportunity to suggest is that private providers are allowed to sell services on a sort of turbocharged version of the NHS app. Do you think, firstly, that’s a good idea? Is it feasible it could happen? What are your thoughts?

Sarah Neville
Well, I think the big stumbling point would be this extraordinary sort of neurasthenic attitude we take in this country to the private sector being involved in the NHS at all. Incidentally, we’re very, very different from most other European nations in that way that happily do have a mixed economy on public and private provision. But I think one thing that is very striking at this 75th anniversary is the way in which people are voting with their feet and moving to the private sector. I mean, there’s astonishing data on people starting to use private GPs, not to mention, of course, people going private to try to avoid the very long waiting lists for elective surgery. So perhaps there is a shift in mindset that would make Blair’s idea better received perhaps than it would have been 10 or 20 years ago. But at the same time, I think, you know, one of the things I see at the 75th anniversary is this quite alarming divide developing whereby those who can afford — some of them only just — you know, some people are really struggling to afford the private GP appointment or the elective surgery. But there is, you know, an increasing gulf developing, I think, between those who can afford to do that and those who have to fall back on the service, joining the 7.4mn-strong queue for their hip or knee replacement.

Lucy Fisher
So you came on the podcast a few weeks ago and talked to us about how under-investment in physical infrastructure of hospitals and digital systems was a problem and meant that just boosting the workforce alone wouldn’t solve the NHS’s productivity problems. Since then we have had the long-awaited workforce plan and we do know that understaffing has also been an issue. Remind our listeners of the headlines from that plan and give us your appraisal of it.

Sarah Neville
Well, the headlines are the ambition to double doctor training places and near-double training places for adult nurses — that is, some distinguished from paediatric nurses. And there’s some fascinating stuff in there actually that would really change the workforce mix quite significantly in terms of a much-bigger role for physician associates, nurse associates, advanced practitioners. In the case of the physician and the nurse associates, they, of course, are not trained to the level of a doctor or a nurse. The idea is that they will have the skills to care for people with multiple conditions. But I think on the productivity point that you mentioned, I was very interested to see the productivity ask in the plan, which is very substantial. I mean, for the numbers to work, the NHS has to raise productivity by 1.5 to 2 per cent. And to put that in context, between 2008-09 and the following decade, I think productivity rose on average by 0.7 per cent and the plan — the NHS is always very good at doing this, slipping in these caveats — it was very clear that this can only be achieved with more investment in infrastructure and technology and a better-funded social care system because of course social care needs a workforce plan every bit as much as the NHS does.

Lucy Fisher
And the demands for money are getting worse, aren’t they? Because earlier this week you’ve interviewed Philip Banfield, the chair of the BMA’s ruling council, as well as the junior doctors still demanding their 35 per cent pay rise. We’ve now got consultants going out on strike later this month, radiographers voting for industrial action. It just goes from bad to worse for Sunak, doesn’t it?

Sarah Neville
It does. And I think the sort of curious thing in a way is the lack of negotiation that’s going on. I mean, Philip Banfield did make the point to me that it’s normal for negotiations to go up to the eleventh hour when a strike, particularly one of the seriousness of junior doctors walking out for five days — they’ve never done that before — followed almost immediately by the consultants. But Steve Barclay has very much stuck to the line that he won’t enter negotiations unless they agree to call off the strikes. So the actual approach arguably is slightly different than would normally be taken with industrial action. I mean, Philip Banfield did say to me the 35 per cent, that is not set in stone, that they’re happy to go into a room and start talking about how they might get to that over a period of time. But they want a fundamental acknowledgment from government that their pay has been eroded. And it doesn’t look as if that acknowledgment is coming any time soon.

Robert Shrimsley
I’m interested, Sarah. What do you think — from what you know so far — what do you make of what Labour is saying about how things might be different if they got a shot at this?

Sarah Neville
Well, I think there’s so much that is directionally right and sensible, but we don’t really know the details of — and I think I talked about this a bit last time I was on the podcast, Lucy. But the thing that I think is quite right is that they’re talking about the importance of prevention. But what I’m still not clear from Labour is how they would go about shifting money out of the hospital budget and into prevention, which is essentially what it’s going to mean unless they’re going to find another way of revenue raising. You know, they’ve already told us about inheritance taxes gonna pay for their workforce increases, but they would need more money if they were going to pour additional money into prevention. The one country that did achieve this actually was the Netherlands, interestingly. They took a decision back in about 2000, I think, that they were really going to move the dial in having much faster-rising investment into out-of-hospital care than to in-hospital care. And they’ve achieved it over that quite long period of more than 20 years.

Robert Shrimsley
I think it is a really interesting moment when we look back on this parliament. The decision to scrap the health and social care levy, which was, you know, a moment when — one can argue about the specifics of what was wrong with it using national insurance and suchlike. But this was a moment where parliament chose to hypothecate for the health service and for social care, which is, as Sarah was alluding, you know, grotesquely underfunded and deeply problematic. And I think the decision to scrap that, people may well look back at that, consider that was a seriously lost opportunity for both sides.

Sarah Neville
And it was one where Sunak had actually strongly made the case.  And they’d implemented it, exactly. The hard part arguably was over.

Lucy Fisher
Well, lots more here to discuss. Sarah, you’ll have to come back and join us so we can review developments as they evolve. Thank you for joining us.

Sarah Neville
Thanks very much, Lucy.

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Lucy Fisher
Well, just finally, I want to touch on the standards committee of the House of Commons, which has this week produced its report on Chris Pincher, the former Tory deputy chief whip, and found that he did grope two men last year. Two pretty unpleasant incidents. But of course, one of the reasons this is potentially a big blow for Sunak is it could be the fifth by-election if the Commons votes through the eight-week suspension that the standards committee has recommended. Now, Robert, this sort of sleaze, this latest sleaze episode, is it a specific problem for the Tories? Has it attached itself to them, or do you think it’s the kind of episode that just leads people to think, a plague on all their houses? It sort of taints all politicians.

Robert Shrimsley
Yeah. In general, sleaze spreads across the whole system. People regard all politicians with various degrees of disdain and they don’t really know what sleaze means. And in this particular case of, you know, abuse of one kind or another, there’s plenty to go around the political parties. So in that sense, it doesn’t, except that the issue of decay and standards tends to affect the government of the day more directly than it affects the other parties unless it’s really absolutely rammed home as being another party, as you say, not a sleaze issue, but the Jeremy Corbyn antisemitism issue which was clearly unique to the Labour party. So unless you have a problem like that, all these things in the end do more damage to the government because they’re seen as being a problem with the establishment, which is about . . . 

Lucy Fisher
Stephen, we might get a by-election in Tamworth in Staffordshire, but I know that you’re off to a by-election that we definitely know is happening on July the 20th in Selby to see what’s going on on the ground.

Stephen Bush
Yeah, I’m off to knock on some doors and bother people, see if they can send me their election literature. I mean Selby, in some ways, I think is the least interesting of the by-elections that isn’t complicating local issues. There is in Ruislip and Uxbridge and it’s also a constituency which changes quite radically and the boundary changes, so it gets much more Labour-y when the changes come into force. So in some ways, I suspect, and if the polls are right, I will come back going, yeah, Labour’s gonna win that one.

Lucy Fisher
Well, you come back next week and tell us about that. Just before we go, have either of you got any good cultural recommendations for this week?

Stephen Bush
Don’t see Indiana Jones 5.

Lucy Fisher
OK (laughs). I can’t say, I was planning to.

Robert Shrimsley
Don’t see Asteroid City either.

Lucy Fisher
OK. Well, can I say do watch — if you haven’t already — Champion. Candice Carty-Williams, who wrote Queenie, one of the big, kind of hit novels about a British Jamaican woman a couple of years ago, she’s adapted this UK rap drama for the small screen, which I know maybe doesn’t sound that promising, but it’s brilliant.

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Lucy Fisher
Well, that’s it for this episode of the FT’s Political Fix. I’m off next week, so my colleague, Miranda Green, will be in the hot seat. If you like the podcast, do subscribe. You can find us through all the usual channels to receive episodes as soon as they’re released. We also appreciate positive reviews and ratings. It really helps spread the word. Political Fix was presented by me, Lucy Fisher, and produced by Audrey Tinline. Manuela Saragosa is the executive producer. Original music by Breen Turner with mix by Simon Panayi. The FT’s global head of audio is Cheryl Brumley. We’ll meet again here next week.

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