2025 starts with the political mood as grey as the weather. The limited hopes aroused by the election of a Labour government have already largely disappeared.
The cut to winter fuel benefit for pensioners, the maintenance of the two-child benefit cap, the snub to the Waspi women’s demand for justice, the failure to intervene when jobs are at risk in basic industries — all this speaks to a government bereft of a sense of purpose, never mind progress.
This has only been aggravated by political blunders like the acceptance of free clothing, accommodation and tickets from billionaire Lord Alli, the unnecessary sacking of transport secretary Louise Haigh and the suspension of seven left MPs from the whip.
And Labour has doubled down on the war policy of the Sunak government, pouring money and arms into the Ukraine conflict while backing Israeli genocide in Gaza and aggression across the wider Middle East to the hilt. The sky appears to be the limit in terms of military spending, too.
All this has been reflected in a polling slump which shows Labour losing a quarter or so of the limited support it secured in July, a trend reflected in local authority by-elections.
In Scotland, the one part of the country where Labour registered a genuine advance at the general election, that has largely been reversed to the advantage of the Scottish National Party.
Elsewhere, the malaise has only boosted the hard-right Reform UK rather than the Tories, which have far from recovered from the disgrace of their 14 miserable years in office, unredeemed by any achievement whatsoever.
There is nothing to suggest that Kemi Badenoch is going to lead a Conservative revival. She appears to remain addicted to pointless, undignified squabbles, such as alleging that Reform is faking its membership numbers.
Nor does Badenoch offer anything by way of a positive agenda beyond an unslakable thirst for culture war quarrels. This does not even unite her diminished party, let alone reach out to the beleaguered country.
The upshot is that the two parties which between them have either constituted or led every government for a century now poll little more than half the electorate between them.
As well as Reform and the SNP, the Liberal Democrats and Greens poll strongly, while the number of the apathetic and the disengaged from parliamentary politics only rises.
The urgent question for the labour movement and the left is how it can become a force offering hope once again, as it was when Labour was led by Jeremy Corbyn not so long ago.
Clearly, meekly trailing behind the endlessly relaunched government will not meet the need. Rather, it will bind trade unions and socialists to the failing Starmer project in the public’s mind.
While affiliated trade unions will understandably be reluctant to sever their links with the party of government, there is nothing to stop them from being much bolder in their critique not only of specific policies but of the whole pro-City, pro-war strategy Starmer is following.
The parliamentary left is presently divided three ways, between those like Corbyn elected as independents, those suspended from the Labour whip, and those still within the ranks of the Parliamentary Labour Party.
Yet they differ on little of political substance. It would be a good new year’s resolution for socialists in parliament to take joint initiatives and speak with one voice on the vital issues affecting working people, at least until the strategic picture becomes clearer.
The working class deserves better than the cheerless prospect of Starmer or Farage. It is up to the left and the unions to step up without delay.
