04.07.24: Fourteen years of Tory gross mismanagement of government, economy and society came to a crashing and well-deserved end. Keir Starmer’s Labour government was elected with a landslide of seismic proportions.
But with a huge Parliamentary majority delivered on a share of the vote that would ordinarily spell defeat, this was more about the Tories losing than Labour winning. The old assumptions have been torn up. Throw into the mix an increasingly five-party (six in Scotland) system where once it was two and the potential for electoral volatility if Labour ends up disappointing is obvious.
The Starmer Symptom brings together leading political writers to navigate the complex terrain of this seismic shift in British politics. This unique collection analyses voter data, and looks at the break-up of the two-party system with the rise of a populist right in Reform UK and a new independent left. Will Keir Starmer’s government be able to successfully combine the pragmatic and social democratic to produce radical change? And if not, who is waiting in the wings?
Table of Content
Foreword
Introduction – Mark Perryman
Part One – Mapping the Hope
1. The Forward March of Labour Unhalted – Jeremy Gilbert
2. How Labour Turned Defeat Into Victory - Paula Surridge
3. Shooting the Messenger – Emma Burnell
4. Much Ado About the Son of a Toolmaker – Joe Kennedy
Part Two – The Fallout
5. The Perils of Monopoly Labourism – Neal Lawson
6. The Conservative Meltdown – Phil Burton-Cartledge
7. The Resistible Rise of the Populist Right – Joe Mullhall
8. Back to the Fragments – Hilary Wainwright
Part Three – Stability, Change, a Circle Squared
9. It’s the Economy, Not Stupid – James Meadway
10. Climate Emergency Incoming – Andrew Simms
11. No Democratic Reform, No Change – Jess Garland
12. Putting Britain Back Together Again – Brendan Mc Geever
Part Four – The Outcomes
13. Whatever Happened to Left Populism? – Marina Prentoulis
14. Unions Make Us Strong – Gregor Gall
15. Biting the Hand that Doesn’t Feed Us – Yasmin Alibhai-Brown
16. Pragmatic, Social Democratic, Radical – Eunice Goes
About the author
Mark Perryman’s previous books include The Corbyn Effect, The Moderniser’s Dilemma and The Blair Agenda. A pioneer of a left culture rooted in the convivial and participative rather than command and control, Mark mixes politics and culture as the co-founder of the self-styled ‘sporting outfitters of intellectual distinction’, Philosophy Football.
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