No Beer Keir

Let facts be submitted to a candid world.

A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Fresh from announcing that he was musing a ban on smoking in pubs – an unbearable usurpation of our natural and inalienable rights I covered last week – pub bosses have been warned that Sir Keir Starmer may implement minimum alcohol pricing as part of the Government’s public health drive.

As reported in The Telegraph;

 Labour figures have previously refused to rule out the possibility of bringing in minimum unit pricing.

Andrew Gwynne, the minister for public health, has also issued warnings to the drinks industry that Labour will take an interventionist approach.

Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, was “known to be pro” the policy…He told a Parliamentary debate in 2020: “We have already heard the positive case from Scotland, and there is an active campaign for it… When asked by the BBC last May whether he would introduce the policy, he said that in government he would look at “a range of measures”.

a senior government figure floated minimum pricing at an industry event held shortly before the election. A source said that the person told one business representative the industry needed to “get its act together” or face the prospect of government intervention.

Asked if the Government intended to take action against other unhealthy behaviour such as obesity, Jacqui Smith said: “That strikes me as being the type of thing that perhaps you would expect a government to be doing and I’m pleased that those are the things that we are in the very early days of our Government putting into place.”

Only in the event of a major crisis will a government have more political capital than it does in the first 100 days (and only if managed successfully; for every Falklands, there is a Suez).  It’s somewhat curious, then, that Keir Starmer has spent what should have been his golden dawn doubling down on the petty prohibitionism that marked that served the Tories so poorly.

What is even more interesting is that this programme, so far, constitutes the only proactive actions his government have taken. The other headline grabbers - releasing tens of thousands of prisoners, dispersing asylum seekers throughout the country, hiking up taxes and cutting winter fuel payments – he can at least claim he is reacting to the actions of previous governments.

This approach isn’t bearing fruit. He is now viewed as unfavourably as he has ever been, and it’s only set to get worse. And Starmer was not sailing on a crested wave of popularity to begin with; he was delivered to power on the back of a pathetic mandate after an election campaign that was more about getting the Tories out than anyone else in. Starmer’s offering failed to bring the electorate in behind him during the campaign, and their disillusionment has been proved good judgement.

So, given he had an opportunity to make himself popular through ‘moving fast and fixing things’, why is he prioritising this? Even if you agree with the principle, it’s not going to move the needle significantly on tackling the host of more pressing problems Britain faces.

So why do it?

Starmer’s language – which I analysed in The Critic last week – gives some insight;

When asked whether he was considering banning smoking, the justification he offered was largely concerned with the protection of the NHS — even rationalising the need to save the 80,000 people who lose their lives to smoking every year in terms of “reducing the burden on the NHS”.

Likewise, Bridget Phillipson’s recent announcement that Labour will scrap single headline Ofsted judgements, on the grounds that they had previously been “high stakes for schools” was anchored in the language of institutional protectionism. 

As former special adviser Rajiv Shah put it, this marks “a subtle — and dangerous — shift from thinking humans are of ultimate value to thinking an institution is.” When he invited the nation, in his inaugural speech, “to join this government of service”, few of us guessed that it would be the people serving the government by limiting their information and liberty so as not to overwhelm what the creaking and ineffectual institutions of the state can deliver. 

In that piece I described Starmerism as ‘politics done by a former Director of Public Prosecutions.’ But one friend put it much better; ‘He is an institutionalist who governs by the default impulses of institutions.’

This is great analysis. Starmerism has no actual policies or beliefs beyond propping up the crumbling institutions of the state by prioritising the responsibility of the person to the state over their rights – which is what makes postliberal language so well-suited to his aims.

What policies and beliefs Labour will hold in government are downstream of concessions he has made to the wider party. They are also the result of institutional protectionism, the institution in this case being the Labour Party. This is, of course, the nature of most political parties, but the extent to which Starmer has eradicated belief is something completely new. The Ming Vase is empty.

This is a position that will not – cannot – hold. Perhaps he has taken the same lesson postliberals took from Covid - that people are prepared to forego more rights and bear more responsibility in order to protect their community - but that was during a global pandemic, and people thought the sacrifices they were making were important. Starmer’s public health plan, by contrast, is small beer. I doubt very much that people will be happy making the sacrifices he proposes for an institution - the NHS - that is creaking, has been for years, and they doubt will be saved by them not having a third pint.

Petty prohibitionism cannot substitute for a lack of ideological mission, and restricting liberty in the name of institutions that are increasingly unable to fulfil their basic role to the public will be a Galilean endeavour.¹

The fundamental point is that this plan will not move the needle. When the institutions continue to fail - and they will, because it is institutional failure and mismanagement that is the most pressing cause of their failure, rather than the decisions of the public - people will begin to question the virtue of their sacrifice, and a ‘history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.’

1. John 7:52; ‘for out of Galilee ariseth no prophet.’