If – as some Scots claim – we’re a more progressive and caring nation than our English neighbours, then Sir Keir Starmer may have handed the fractured independence movement the glue to put itself back together.
With polls suggesting the SNP may lose a swathe of MPs to Labour at the next election, Starmer’s refusal to change the Tories two child benefit cap gives the nationalist movement, currently engaged in civil war, the opportunity to unite.
However, it also offers the possibility of discovering that we’re not actually that different at all, and that a desperate desire to be rid of the Conservative government means stomaching a policy which many find distasteful.
Politics is about the art of making tough choices and Starmer has just made one.
Testimony to a paucity of thought
His stance on this matter may damage him, with talk of a potential mutiny by his MPs, and may also help reinvigorate nationalist opposition and heal their internal strife.
His decision to stick with the two child benefit limit is ammunition to those who claim there’s no difference between Conservatives and Labour.
It is also testimony to the paucity of thought which Labour have shown in developing and articulating a lucid and reasoned policy on a host of areas from education to welfare.
There’s a major discussion to be had about poverty and how we properly define it and how (and if) it can ever be truly eliminated – and in that discussion the welfare of children shouldn’t be a casualty of political calculations.
But with Starmer and Labour looking on course to sweep the Tories from office, the choice facing the UK electorate may be whether they’ll thole this harsh decision for a greater good.
The key aim of Labour is getting rid of a Conservative party which in my view deserves to be punted.
They’ve presided over a society where wealth and opportunity are weighted more heavily than ever in favour of those who’ve already had a head start in life.
Starmer’s announcement that scrapping the Tory cap won’t be his policy for the next election may well leave some soft nationalist voters who may be considering switching sides, wondering what the point of the Labour party is.
But it still leaves such folk with the dilemma of who can get rid of Rishi Sunak and his party, as living standards fall and a growing sense of inequality prevails.
For those on the left, Starmer’s action betrays what Labour should stand for by a doleful acceptance of a policy which they say is heartless and cruel.
It’s the old Victorian distinction between the deserving and the undeserving poor.
But the Labour party isn’t now and was never owned by the left.
It has always been a broad church: at heart a social democratic party which tries to appeal to very general notions of fairness and decency across as a wide a sector of society as possible.
I’ve always thought at the root of the two child policy was the Tory view that there is a hard core of scroungers living off the back of others, who will neither work nor want.
It’s the old Victorian distinction between the deserving and the undeserving poor.
However we’re kidding ourselves if we believe there aren’t also many working folk who share some of those views and Labour are also looking to that constituency to help win the election.
The Labour leader’s decision may be reversed by him if it seriously affects their current popularity.
He’ll be balancing the growing desire to be rid of the Tories, and how great the rifts in the independence movement are, in figuring out if he’s on safe ground in sticking with this unfair policy.
Crafts and skills deserve more respect
As the first in my family to go to university I’d never discourage anyone from broadening their horizons by doing a degree.
Rishi Sunak has attacked the idea of “low value” degrees in England which don’t lead to decent jobs.
His protests might hold more water if his government had ensured available apprenticeships to fill the many vacancies now evident across many trades, and for which he’s going to have relax immigration rules.
That said I’ve long felt that unlike Germany we don’t give sufficient acknowledgement or respect to those who are qualified in the many crafts and skills which a functioning economy desperately needs.
If I was stranded on a desert island with my law degree along with a joiner, I’m pretty sure the carpenter would be more beneficial to our survival prospects than my knowledge of contract law.
The world needs all sorts of skills and talents, but it also doesn’t owe any of us a living.
There may well be satisfaction in intellectual endeavour from studying for a degree, and plumbers and sparkies may not get to wear a graduation gown, but they’re no less crucial to our economic wellbeing than someone with letters after their name.
