“Our low growth has been our Achilles’ heel now for 13 years, so we’ve got to turn that around,” argues the leader of Britain’s Labour Party in an interview with The Economist. “That’s why we’ve made that the central mission”
Thank you first for sitting down with us. We live in an era from Europe to thein which the idea of activist government, of interventionist government, is really being revived in lots of places. Your contribution to this has been the “missions” speeches and what you call “dynamic government”. Would you give us, in a nutshell, your textbook definition of what “Starmerism” is?Building a better and changed Britain.
For that reason I wanted a lot of business input into what the missions are, because I don’t think we’re going to get the partnership we need if businesses or other partners—in health, it’d be different partners—don’t think that the missions are the right missions for the country. Then we partner as we go forward. Now, that is active government in the sense that the government rolls up its sleeves in that partnership.
I think that bit of “Starmerism” is as important because the missions are intended to be: ‘These are the things that we will be laser focused on, and all other answers will depend on those questions.’ In government, we’ll get thousands of decisions to make every day. There’ll be attempts to blow us off course the whole time. The missions are intended to give us the motors on the ships, and as a way to answer all questions.
I don’t know about that. If you take the person who will be in charge of the Treasury, if we have the privilege of being elected to government—Rachel Reeves—she’s very clear about what she wants and how she wants it delivered. As I hope you’ll have observed, Rachel and I are very close in our thinking, in the way we operate together.
I’m not new to the idea of reforming public services. It’s obviously central to the argument we’re making today about thefit for the future, then it’s not just about money. It’s about recognising the health needs and mental-health needs of the country, and recognising that prevention, intervention, technology, how you access health, primary care, needs to change.
I’ve said many, many times my frustration with sticking-plaster politics, the short-term basis of decisions for the last 13 years, has been a massive hindrance to our economic growth. We’ve got to get longer-term thinking. That requires a government that is prepared to say, that’s our plan, and we’re sticking with it.
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