2024 has seen the centenary and reprise not only of the Paris Olympics but also of a new Labour government. That of 1924 was the very first of its kind, a minority administration led by Ramsay MacDonald.
Labour supplanted Liberals as the alternative to Conservatives as governing party. The ’20s were roaring, with the Jazz Age, modernism and surrealism in their pomp for those with the means to enjoy them.
High unemployment, low wages, no welfare state
For most, though, the times were hard, with the losses from the Great War still painful, unemployment high, wages low and no welfare state. Society was deeply divided between haves and have-nots. A time not to be repeated, one might think.
Between then and now, huge progress has taken place. Advancing technologies have delivered new opportunities for travel, communications and employment. Social, educational and health improvements arrived with the Welfare State. Post-war peace in Europe, helped by the Common Market and later the EU, brought stability and open borders.
Unregulated capitalism
Until 2008. The economic crash of that year perfectly illustrated the flaws of unregulated capitalism, which had become the defining model for Western economies.
As if to validate this reality, the Coalition government of 2010 embarked on an ideological assault on the lower-waged and unwaged, in the pretence of recouping losses that were actually caused by reckless bankers. Succeeding administrations’ gratuitous damage to public services, infrastructure and national reputation can surely only be ascribed to lining the pockets of the wealthy.
Now, once again, a Conservative Prime Minister has to yield Downing Street to a Labour one.
Divorced from its largest market
In 14 years, the pillars of progress have been assaulted from within. Divorced from its largest and closest market, the incoming Labour team has been largely denuded of the means to restore, let alone improve, economic matters for the nation.
The justice system has been allowed to drown under the weight of cases without the resources to process them, nor can it provide the prisons to incarcerate the guilty.
Public servants, on whom the public depend for health, care, welfare, education, hygiene and local administration, have had their resources squeezed beyond sustainability, while being demonised by ministers and so-called ‘think tanks’. Incomes for those unable to work are far below what is accepted to be required for a decent life.
Even the nation’s security, defined by the capacity of military, police and border forces to defend our way of life, has become vulnerable under a political brand, traditionally its proudest defender, but now purloined as a tool by a right-wing minority, albeit not for the good of the nation.
Labour’s return is worth celebrating
The reprise of Labour’s first administration is worth celebrating insofar that a party speaking and acting for the whole electorate may once again be in government. Its leader Keir Starmer’s task is not one to relish, given the hand he has been passed.
The lessons of MacDonald’s premiership need to be remembered too. His adoption of policies too close to those of the Conservatives, including benefits cuts, led to an early downfall. Starmer’s adherents would dearly like to see redistributive policies, rectification of Tory wrongs, a vision of optimism. These have yet to be offered, but Labour has been elected so must be given the chance, even to make what critics will consider to be mistakes.
2024 Britain is in a state, with inequality once again too akin to its condition a hundred years ago. Much of the progress made since 1924 has been wiped out by the last 14 years of greed, xenophobia and the incompetence of those from whom Starmer must pick up the pieces.
100 years on, Labour has only just arrived back in No.10. No miracles are promised nor expected. The right-wing media and left-wing activists are already choosing to see no good in whatever it does or says.
By all means let opponents criticise the government when it has failed, but not when it is merely not to their taste. We surely do not want Starmer’s term to end after just 10 months, like that of Ramsay MacDonald. We surely do not want Labour to yield the keys of No 10 to proponents of an ever more right-wing polity. Look what happened also 100 years ago this year in Italy.
Let’s allow Keir the chance our democracy offered him.
CLICK HERE TO DONATE TO OUR CROWDFUNDER
HELP US BECOME STRONGER SO THAT WE CAN CONTINUE TO DELIVER POWERFUL CITIZEN JOURNALISM!
