Show Notes
Recorded live at the Centre for Progressive Policy’s Inclusive Growth Conference on 28th November, this special episode The Power Test looks at where we are six months into the new Labour government and what it needs to do to deliver its promise of a decade of national renewal.
Following the Budget, the reelection of Donald Trump in the US, farmer protests, and a rumoured government ‘relaunch’, Sam Freedman and Ayesha Hazarika, together with Chief Executive of the New Economics Foundation Dr Danny Sriskandarajah, CPP’s Director of Place and Practice Annabel Smith, and Power Test regular and Director of the Project on Center-Left Renewal at the Progressive Policy Institute Claire Ainsley, look at what Labour needs to do to deliver, restore trust in politics and survive.
Most significantly, “voters need clear proof points on delivery that they can see in their own lives” said Ainsley, arguing that standard economic measures will not be enough to convince Britons to back Labour for a second term. “You have to improve living standards, not just infrastructure and GDP” - a lesson potentially that can be taken from Donald Trump’s victory in the US over an unpopular Democratic Party despite a booming economy on paper.
Labour also needs to be telling a story about its approach on the economy - “you need to constantly tell people what you’re doing. The Tories tried several different explanations of their approach - but at least they tried” - with the panel pushing the government to toughen up argument, even on politically challenging issues including taxes on wealth.
Smith also raised the somewhat untapped potential Labour mayors can offer the government - “we can reinvigorate Labour representation, with Labour mayors being part of how the government communicates its message”. Mayors are well-known, often well-liked and sometimes higher profile than new cabinet ministers. But Sam Freedman points out that with Andrea Jenkins defecting to Reform, it’s quite possible that Lincolnshire could well have a Reform mayor next year, and the party needs to get a move on - particularly with local elections and those in Scotland due within 18 months to two years. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
More from No Sacred Cows
In this special post-conference edition of No Sacred Cows, Ben Lucas, Anna McShane and Ed Owen ask what has been achieved in Burnham’s first 100 days — and whether Labour is ready for the much harder decisions that still lie ahead. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
As voters splinter between Reform, the Greens and an increasingly volatile centre ground, this week we examine what a winning centre-left politics might look like in an age where trust is collapsing, loyalties are weakening and delivery matters more than ever. If Labour wants a second term, our new Prime Minister, his team and the cabinet will have to stop the assumption that yesterday’s political truths will still work tomorrow.
As debate over the future direction of Labour in government gathers pace, this week we explore the growing disconnect between politics and economics, the collapse of the old social contract, and what a new political economy might look like.
Can Britain achieve net zero without sacrificing energy security, economic growth and public support? As energy prices remain stubbornly high and global instability continues to expose vulnerabilities in energy markets, the debate is no longer just about climate change. It is about jobs, national resilience, living standards and Britain's place in a rapidly changing world. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
This week, we ask whether Westminster is still fighting yesterday’s battles while the world moves on. Public First’s Jeegar Kakkad joins us to examine why defence and national security remain peripheral to political debate, despite growing global instability, as well as consider what a serious programme of national resilience might look like, and whether a new politics of nation building could offer an answer to both international insecurity and domestic stagnation. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.