It was something straight from the pages of George Orwell.
Ministers have apparently been warned by the Equality and Human Rights Commission that proposed legislation to protect workers from harassment by their customers could lead to a prohibition on the debate of contentious issues in public. ‘Pubs could ban patrons from debating transgender rights’ reported one headline.
Actually, this would even go beyond Orwell’s dystopian vision.
In 1984, Big Brother opted to leave the pubs alone, trusting that if ‘the Proles’ were left to content themselves with football, gambling and beer, good order would naturally be maintained.
Downing Street quickly moved to dismiss the story as ‘nonsense’. New legislation to safeguard employees from harassment would not proscribe robust debate over a pint, a government spokesman insisted.
Perhaps. But if banning contentious closing-time discourse is not on Keir Starmer’s agenda, the reports still underline one of his fundamental political problems. Which is that it sounds precisely like the sort of thing he would dearly love to do.
Over the weekend it was claimed the Prime Minister is becoming increasingly concerned about the rising tide of populism. With good reason. The latest polls show Nigel Farage and Reform UK surging.
There is increasing speculation the Tories – either under Kemi Badenoch or a successor – will opt to lurch decisively to the Right to counter this insurgency.
If he wants public support, Keir Starmer must learn to speak the language of ordinary working people, says Dan Hodges
‘The political landscape is shifting,’ one Labour minister confided to me. ‘Our job isn’t to work out how to beat the Tories any more. It’s how to defeat the populists.’
To this end, Starmer is said to be considering a number of strategies. A crackdown on immigration. A curb on welfare spending. A new drive on law and order.
All of which are perfectly fine. But they will each be doomed to failure if Sir Keir doesn’t recognise something else. To defeat populism he has to start to learn – and then speak – the language of ordinary working people.
Last year, in a bid to offset the charge that his government was already losing its way, he mounted a ‘re-launch’ of his administration. It was a mess.
At the heart of his speech was a good, easily relatable policy of putting more police back on the beat. But it disappeared behind a wall of impenetrable rhetoric about ‘measurable deliverables’ and ‘mission-led government’.
Nobody in the real world speaks like that. And Nigel Farage certainly doesn’t speak like that.
If you look at every contribution Reform’s leader makes, it is focused directly on the fears and hopes of ordinary voters. And most crucially, it’s couched in a language they understand.
Keir Starmer, for all his pride at being ‘the son of a tool-maker’, makes each of his interventions sound like he is actually the son of an HR manager from a second-tier accountancy firm. There is no attempt to talk in the way the man or woman on the street does.
Indeed, there are times when it appears he’s going out of his way to deliberately insult them. Look at last week’s intervention on the rape gangs, when he implied – actually, he didn’t imply but came straight out and said it – that anyone who thought there should be a national inquiry into the abuse was promoting a ‘far-Right’ agenda.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has the knack of appealing to, and sympathising with the worries and hopes of, the man and the woman on the street
The Prime Minister cannot hide who he really is. And nor should he. The British people can smell inauthenticity a mile off.
For all his ‘working-class boy made good’ shtick, he is essentially another liberal, Labour, North London lawyer. But if he cannot pull off a ‘man of the people’ routine, he could at least attempt to demonstrate that he empathises with working people. Or, even better, try to demonstrate he occupies the same planet as them.
On Monday the nation woke up to the news the financial markets were in turmoil, taxes may have to be hiked even further, spending on public services will probably have to be slashed and interest rates are set to remain eye-wateringly high.
Starmer’s response? To go out and deliver a speech flanked by two robots talking about how he would seize the opportunities of AI.
Again, this is a worthy subject. But it hardly represents the people’s priorities.
‘Today’s AI plan mainlines into the veins of this enterprising nation,’ the Prime Minister solemnly intoned.
But what it was actually doing was mainlining populism into the veins of a nation that is sick of seeing their politicians banging on about their pet hobbies and obsessions while they’re struggling to put food on the table, pay the mortgage and keep the heating on.
‘For too long we have allowed blockers to control the public discourse and get in the way of growth in this sector,’ Starmer pledged. ‘This plan puts an end to that by introducing new measures that will create dedicated AI Growth Zones that speed up planning permission and give them the energy connections they need to power up AI.‘
You can just imagine the conversation down the Dog & Duck – assuming people are still allowed to engage in one.
‘Have you heard? Beryl’s just gone into A&E with pneumonia.’
‘Yes. Terrible. But at least we’re getting an AI Growth Zone’.
It’s not just that this sort of rhetoric is out of touch and misguided, it’s downright offensive. Because it is literally treating the working people of Britain as if they are ‘proles’. Talk at them, talk down to them, but don’t actually talk to them about the things that really matter to them.
Anti-corruption minister Tulip Siddiq had to step down from her ministerial role after being named in a corruption case against her deposed aunt Sheikh Hasina in Bangladesh
This patronising, gobbledygook was on display again last night as Starmer deployed his MPs to desperately deflect from the latest mini-crisis engulfing his administration, the resignation of Tulip Siddiq.
On Newsnight the Labour MP Natalie Fleet was asked for her reaction to the fact the Prime Minister’s hand-picked anti-corruption minister had just been forced to step down after finding herself facing an international corruption investigation. ‘I am thrilled that we are upholding the standards and that we are showing that we are very different to the last government,’ Fleet said.
Again, this is the literal definition of Orwellian double-speak. The anti-corruption minister is forced to resign. But it is sold to the British people as evidence of the Government’s probity.
We are told Keir Starmer wants to face down the populists. But if he can’t find a way of speaking the language and priorities of working Britain he may as well as hand the keys of Downing Street to Nigel Farage this afternoon.
