Here we are, a quarter of the way into the 21st century, with a Labour government wielding a 404-seat majority – a parliamentary juggernaut with the power to reshape Britain’s economic landscape. And what do we find? certainly not the bold, transformative policies you would expect from such unfettered authority, but rather another dreary act in the long-running farce titled “Pretending to Care About the Working Class While Courting Big Business”.
This is a Labour government that, when faced with its first real test of mettle, chose to withdraw The Winter Fuel Payment from millions of our pensioners and maintain the cruel two-child benefit cap. It’s as if they’ve traded their red flag for a white one, surrender being their first instinct when confronted with the task of actual governance.
The protagonist of this particular scene is none other than Sir Keir Starmer’s “changed” Labour Party, brandishing their new Employment Bill, like a knight with a rubber sausage instead of a sword. One can almost hear the dragon of worker exploitation chuckling at the sight.
This bill, much like its architects, seems to suffer from a severe case of identity crisis. It wants to be seen as progressive without actually progressing, to appear worker-friendly without upsetting its new friends in the City. It’s a masterclass in political equivocation, a document so full of caveats and consultations that one wonders if it was drafted by a committee of weathervanes, spinning frantically to catch the slightest breeze of public opinion.
At first glance, this legislative opus appears impressive – a weighty tome of 157 pages that promises to be “the biggest boost to pay and productivity in the workplace in a generation”. However, upon closer inspection, its heft proves more akin to a pillow than a cudgel, designed to cushion the blow to big business rather than strike a decisive blow for workers’ rights. The devil, as they say, is in the details – or in this case, the conspicuous lack thereof.
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