‘I thought Starmer would be more Blair than Corbyn. I was horribly wrong’

Half a year in and the current government must be wondering how it could all go so wrong so fast. They’ve enjoyed the shortest political honeymoon on record. It’s dawning on them that just shouting about the awful Tories is just not going to be enough, any more than blaming the £20bn black hole no economist can actually find.

I assumed a government led by Sir Keir Starmer would be more Blair than Corbyn. I was horribly wrong. This is a more left-wing government than Harold Wilson’s back in the 1960s. It believes the state can run your life better than you can. It believes trade unions have too little power, having learned nothing from their own experience with the unions, which led to their defeat in 1979.

It is the politics of envy. Witness their attack on parents who scrimp to afford private education while of course paying their taxes for state education in the process. They abolish non-dom status and are surprised when thousands of UK based millionaires quit for a tax-free life in warmer climes. Then ‘Rachel from Accounts’ announces that she’s going to increase employers’ national insurance and is surprised that businesses across the board are outraged.

Never has a love affair been so rudely curtailed than that between the UK chancellor and the businesses that so innocently lapped up her warm words before the election. So, you can gather I’m no fan of this government. Indeed, I confidently predict here and now, after only six months in, that this will be a one-term gig.

It is not unknown for an incoming government to want to get the tough stuff out of the way early, on the basis that voters have short memories, but this is about a fundamental philosophy that is simply wrong. The state does not do things better than individuals and businesses. Government ownership is invariably bad for businesses. This government pays off trade unions that threaten to strike and can’t understand that all that does is bring another demand next year. You cannot be pro-business and pro-worker. Without business, there are no workers.

But there is one area of government where the secretary of state is not only getting on well with her senior officials but has come with a clear determination to change the game for the better. Angela Rayner, the firebrand leftie who Starmer can’t sack has taken to the renamed MHCLG job like a duck to water – and that is very good news for the property industry.

She may or may not hit the target of building one and a half million homes in the space of five years – the odds are very much against her – but she’s making a great start. The National Planning Policy Framework is refreshed, and local planning authorities know there’ll be no hiding place when it comes to land supply.  She has already said she wants to see how large developments such as AI data centres, new green energy projects and essential road and rail improvements can be fast tracked given how slow the Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project process has become in recent years. She has taken on board Lord Charles Banner KC’s report on how to deal with the number of judicial review challenges that are without merit but can lead to essential infrastructure being delayed for years.

What I really like is that she knows a lot of what she decides will not make her popular. NIMBYism may be overrated these days, but there will be no shortage of outrage of the sort we’ve already seen in Swale in Kent or Marlow in Buckinghamshire. Just wait for some of the new town stuff to be launched. But one of the reasons the last government deserved to lose was that they too often refused development where it was unpopular. Good government involves taking tough decisions. Angela, to her great credit, gets it.