Tuesday 07 January 2025 6:00 am | Updated: Monday 06 January 2025 4:21 pm

Six months on, Labour’s pledge to restore trust in politics has proven nonsense

Keir Starmer's Labour critics are circling — Starmer's critics are circling - but who has a plan for growth?

Six months on, where have Labour’s promises of radical reform gone, asks James Chapman in today’s Notebook

What a disappointment the Labour government has turned out to be in terms of restoring trust in politics.

The party talked a good game in opposition, criticising crony appointments, dodgy donations, cash for access and broken promises by Tory ministers.

Sir Keir Starmer declared that the UK needed to “clean up politics”, adding: “I will restore standards in public life with a total crackdown on cronyism”.

While he was pointedly vague on what exactly he would do about it, he gave every impression that he would embark on radical action from day one in office. One specific pledge was to do away with unelected legislators and introduce an elected second chamber in place of the sadly discredited House of Lords.

The outline of a bold programme isn’t difficult to envisage: reform of the honours system including an end to prime ministerial patronage, a democratically-elected second House in time for the next election, no more big money donations to political parties (with state funding if necessary), laws to control microtargeted political ads and propaganda disguised as entertainment on social media, even a new offence of lying in public office.

Labour has shown little or no interest in any of this. It has embarked on a welcome but centuries-overdue move to rid the House of Lords of the remaining hereditary peers and a tentative attempt to tweak the rules on MPs’ second jobs.

Beyond that, the impression has been one of business as usual.

The government found itself embroiled in an essentially trivial but damaging row over freebies for ministers and the latest honours list has been met with the usual outcry over gongs for cronies, chums and disappointed colleagues. It is seen to have breached a manifesto pledge and broken faith with business leaders it courted pre-election with its increase in employers’ National Insurance.

I’m not suggesting constitutional reform is the top issue on voters’ lips. But people do care about standards in public life and every new row over a party donor or a crony appointment chips away at trust a little bit more. The only beneficiary of Labour’s failure to act will be Nigel Farage, who has somehow convinced millions of voters that he and his party are anti-establishment.

Romania’s rigged election

If we needed any further warning, Romania’s rigged election showed the dangers of Russian disinformation in western politics. The usual playbook helped to propel an ultranationalist to the top of the polls. Romania’s constitutional court responded by annulling the results and ordering a new election. By contrast, the UK government and intelligence services have demonstrated an extraordinary lack of curiosity in alleged Russian interference in Brexit.

Climate warnings in 2024

The year 2024 was the hottest on record – with global temperatures 1.5 degrees C above pre-industrial levels, temporarily exceeding the limit set out in the 2015 Paris Agreement. It’s clear the world is now not going to be able to hold temperature increases to 1.5 degrees or even two degrees. This has grave implications in terms of extreme weather events, migration patterns, food production and more. Our species has yet to wake up to the gravity of climate change and 2025 requires concerted global action.

Big Give: Make it a double

Big Give, a charity we’ve worked with on PR for a number of years, is celebrating an incredible achievement: becoming the UK’s biggest individual public fundraiser. Its Christmas Challenge raised £44.7m in just one week, overtaking more established campaigns like Comic Relief and Children in Need. The beauty of Big Give is its simplicity: all public donations to other charities taking part in its campaigns are doubled, thanks to match funding provided by philanthropists, companies and foundations, multiplying people’s generosity. It’s a privilege to work with Big Give’s small but mighty team of ten, who achieve so much.