As Parliament swaps order papers and green benches for buckets and spades, I’m left wondering if it isn’t time for the Labour Party to swap their red rose emblem for a banana skin.
It’s really not been a great start. Neither, for that matter, are the Tories doing much better… but they aren’t the government.
For a government that’s been, for years, a government in waiting, to turn up with no plan for governing, it is no surprise they have had problems being a government… if you see what I mean.
No one voted Labour to watch it do things to the detriment of the most vulnerable. That is not what socialism is all about.
The clue’s in the word; socialism.
Not in the old sense of HMG being the means of production, distribution and exchange…
… although when you think of the water companies, there’s a lot to recommend it…
… more in the sense of social solidarity… in plain English, looking after each other.
In the last year, I guess we’ve learned; don’t vote Labour if you are poor, fragile or vulnerable.
From our point of view, observers of the health and care scene, there’s been a lot to watch. The NHS has been plunged into chaos, demolition, angst and stasis.
Social care… forgotten.
Labour seem determined on a path of self-harm, or as we would say; non-suicidal self-injury disorder.
In the wider population, NSSI is worryingly common, particularly among adolescents and young adults.
Astonishing, epidemic, lifetime-prevalence rates ranging from 15% to 20%. It now seems to be a contagion reaching political parties.
In the latest act of compulsive destruction, Sir Keir Starmer suspended members of his own party for voting against government policy. Policies obviously detrimental to the poorest in society.
In so doing, he has left us, as we jollop ourselves with sun cream, lie back on our sun-loungers to ponder the uncomfortable question…
… what kind of leadership is this? It’s important for him and in the wider context of leadership in all organisations. How to lead through dissent?
Enforcing party discipline might appear decisive. Dig deeper, and it looks less like leadership and more like insecurity.
Real leadership is not about the imposition of loyalty. It is about earning it…
… through strength, persuasion and a shared sense of purpose.
By punishing dissent, he appears less a confident prime minister and more a party manager, anxious to silence internal opposition. It looks insecure. Looks like he lacks confidence in himself.
Leadership is identity and cannot be hammered out by suppression. It is done by example, nudging, trust and…
… through alignment of values, principles and all the actions that flow from them.
Great leaders persuade. They bring others with them. They win hearts and change minds. They don’t stamp their feet and demand obedience. MPs have voted with their conscience and Starmer can never win against conscience… a person’s sense of right and wrong.
The party conference season is not far away and Labour business managers will do their best to Tippex all this off the agenda.
Starmer has risked alienating the very base he once courted. Those who believe Labour’s historic identity lies in defending the vulnerable, championing fairness, and offering a voice to the marginalised…
… and that is indelibly part of real Labour.
Now we ask; ‘does the Labour Party still know what it stands for’?
Margaret Thatcher was famously a conviction politician.
Tony Blair, a master of consensus-building, could always articulate a moral case for the changes he pursued… and never punished dissent.
Keir Starmer is technocratic… driven, I’d guess, by polling data rather than principle. Stifling diversity of thought is never a good idea.
For a leader whose appeal was partly rooted in integrity and ‘grown-up politics’, this moment feels like a huge moral misstep.
It sends the message that unity matters more than justice, that the optics of control trump the ethics of compassion.
It tells voters who are poor, struggling, or disenfranchised that their concerns are subordinate to the machinery of political discipline.
As The Guardian observed;
‘… the party once tolerated dissent. Now it treats it as treason.’
If leadership is about identity, then, like all leaders, Starmer must decide… whose identity is he shaping?
The Labour Party’s?
The Country’s?
Or his own authority?
The answer will define his legacy… not only as a prime minister, but as a leader in the truest sense of the word.
Strong leadership doesn’t silence disagreement.
It survives it.
News and Comment from Roy Lilley Contact Roy – please use this e-address roy.lilley@nhsmanagers.net Reproduced at https://thetrainingnet.com by kind permission of Roy Lilley.
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