How bad is everything?

The NHS is in an ‘unforgivable’ state with hospitals ‘crumbling’. Prisoners pop champagne corks after being let out early to avoid the system collapsing completely. And a £22 billion ‘black hole’ in the nation’s finances needs to be filled urgently, with next month’s Budget promising more pain on top of the controversial stripping back of the winter fuel allowance. 

Today the ‘bad news’ in the government grid is the Darzi review of the NHS in England, which paints a bleak picture. Lord Darzi finds that waiting times have got worse in every part of the NHS over the last decade, and that despite more money and more staff than ever before, productivity has not increased at all. While money has been thrown at poorly performing hospitals rather than directed towards primary and community care, capital investment overall has been starved, leaving the system without the technology or facilities it needs. 

The Prime Minister – in a speech today –put the blame firmly on the last Conservative government for a ‘lost decade’. But he rejected tax rises on ‘working people’ and insisted that the solution is reform. The details of what that means will be set out in a new 10-year plan to be published by Health Secretary Wes Streeting in the spring. 

Yet governments of all stripes have long talked about reform and productivity, which is harder to implement than announcing more cash and more staff and even harder to tell a compelling story to voters about.  

Nevertheless, the direction set by Chancellor Rachel Reeves ahead of the Budget, with the Treasury demanding departmental cuts and eying up capital spending projects to cancel leaves little choice for the government than to talk up the longer-term grind over what it calls ‘sticking paster’ short term fixes. Particularly after offering a deal to end the wave of junior doctors strikes which will see pay rise by 22%, adding pressure to the public finances. 

At the heart of all this is a strategic decision to lay this gloomy messaging on thick in the government’s first months in office. Partly this is a genuine reaction to the scale of the unexpected thorny problems all new government find the last one has left in their in trays. Partly it is expectation management about the scale of the job ahead – and how long it will take (i.e. another term in office, please).  

Crucially, it is also about laying the blame firmly on the Conservatives and setting a narrative that will underpin the whole of the Parliament. 

And that narrative – that the last 14 years were an unmitigated failure – is being met with no real defence from the Conservatives beyond arguing slightly meekly that the economic inheritance wasn’t all that bad, really. 

The Tories are focussed on their own extended leadership contest, which won’t conclude until after the Budget. This deprives the new leader – whoever they are – of the chance to take the fight to Labour at one of the only set piece moments in the political year when voters are really paying attention to politics. 

Fundamentally, though, there is no-one on the Conservative side who really can – or wants to – own the last 14 years.  

Afterall, unlike the Thatcher or New Labour era, it was far from a coherent or consistent project. Those who defend the Cameron era want nothing to do with the Boris years. Those who argue Theresa May should be judged kindlier in hindsight implicitly criticise what came after. The Sunak camp is still licking its wounds and trying to run an interim Opposition. And few other than Liz Truss herself want to talk about her cameo government. 

This attempt to frame the narrative is nothing new. Think back to the infamous “there is no money left” note that Conservative ministers were still waving around years later as evidence of Labour profligacy. Cameron and Osborne used the time Labour spent arguing about which Miliband they wanted to lead them hammering home the message that Labour had “failed to fix the roof while the sun was shining”, a message that laid the foundation for victory in 2015.  

Speaking at the TUC conference this week, the Prime Minister insisted that there would be light at the end of the tunnel. But he cautioned that “that doesn’t mean the way towards it has become any easier”. 

So however sunlit the uplands will be cast as being by the time of the next election, for now get used to the gloom.