The EU has been having a rough time of late and here are a few reasons why:

First, the debacle of the Covid vaccine roll-out. For those of us in the UK who supported continuing EU membership and decry zero sum game nationalism, particularly when it now relates to vaccines, this has been frustrating to say the least…

The European Commission’s embarrassing U-turn on trying to impose vaccine restrictions on Northern Ireland in the face of poor advance ordering of vaccines for EU members relative to the UK was a spectacular own goal. To add to the EU’s woes, assertions initially aired by German officials and then highlighted by President Macron, with no hard evidence, that the UK’s Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine was relatively ineffective for the over 65s, has ensured EU disarray over the vaccine roll-out was complete. Friends of mine on the continent and in Ireland are looking enviously at us, as they wait in vain to be vaccinated. Surely a first. But in the face of a virus which respects no borders, it is in our interest as much as ever that the EU gets this right.

And in mentioning President Macron, he too seems to be shooting himself in the foot to the EU’s detriment. He is increasingly fractious as he tacks to the Right to combat Muslim extremism, introducing a controversial law banning the filming of police actions, subsequently withdrawn in the face of allegations of police brutality towards ethnic minorities. Combined with indulging in his bout of vaccine nationalism versus the UK and looking strained, it is surely linked to the popularity of the Far Right. A recent presidential election (due April 2022) poll puts Marine Le Pen just 4% behind Macron in a run-off. Early days but worrying.

Add to this the departure of the steady, reliable and powerful Merkel in October and there seems a lack of bandwidth in leadership to guide the EU out of its troubles. Even Draghi’s rise to the premiership in Italy is cause for concern. Whilst highly able, this technocratic appointment just highlights the failure of democracy in a nation which cannot hold together government coalitions, even mid-pandemic.

Next are issues relating to the troublesome former Eastern European bloc. Hungary and Poland, in particular, are becoming increasingly authoritarian, leaving the EU perplexed in how far to go to rein them in. Despite resolving issues that nearly derailed a coronavirus recovery fund, the cultural divide with western Europe continues to grow. Judicial reforms, restrictions on the media and the erosion of checks and balances have reinforced the governing parties’ dominance there. Banning abortion, restricting LGBT rights and curtailing media freedom are all on the legislative agenda in these countries. Only last week, Poland’s governing Law and Justice party (PiS) proposed a tax on advertising revenues to further undermine private, independent media. Since the PiS took office in 2015, Poland had fallen from 18th to 62nd in the World Press Freedom Index. Just one example of a disturbing trend. The EU is a bulwark that protects democracy in these relatively new, independent nations but is struggling to strike the right balance on intervention.

None of these issues are cause for Brexit-inspired celebration in the UK. The fall-out of our departure from the single market grows and when the coronavirus pandemic is hopefully tamed, the EU’s challenges will ultimately remain our challenges too. I wonder whether solutions to them would have been easier to achieve had we remained a member. Only time will tell.

Keir Starmer’s honeymoon is over. Under fire for some minor missteps, the current criticism is that he has let the government get away with mismanagement of the pandemic – and now it is too late. Johnson, who seems to have more than nine lives, is now surfing the wave of vaccine success and the Tories have regained their opinion poll lead.

But Opposition politics, as Robert Shrimsley wrote wisely in today’s FT, is a long game, particularly at this stage of the political cycle and with Labour’s dire Corbyn baggage to contend with.

Starmer has brought competence back to the front bench and you could imagine him being a dull, but worthy contender for Prime Minister. But I am sure and certainly hope he is aware, that is not enough.

New Labour (yes, another version!) needs to stand for something and that is harder to do, as Robert Shrimsley highlighted, when the Tories have moved on to the Labour Party’s natural turf. It is also difficult to achieve in the middle of a pandemic. Who is going to listen to new Opposition policy initiatives, when a locked down public is largely fixated on dodging the virus and surviving through to the end of each month?

There will be time. As highlighted in last week’s blog, Rishi Sunak is boxed-in by manifesto commitments not to raise taxes, currently worth 64% of tax revenues. Filleting budget announcements, a plan for non-wasteful infrastructure investment, an overhaul of social care provision, educational and training reform and yes, a nod to cultural wars by embracing constructive English nationalism to make the Union work better, could all bring benefits over the medium term.

In the meantime, what strikes me about Labour is their almost total lack of charisma. That means something when up against ‘good times Johnson’ because when life improves and Johnson has his mojo back, it could be a dangerous weapon. Johnson is not loved by many of his colleagues and a large part of the electorate; but enough people who want to be cheered up may just give him another General Election victory if he lasts that long.

Labour, and particularly Starmer, at least post pandemic, need to look at their dress sense, their sense of optimism and their sense of humour (assuming there is one) and display it. Starmer feels more like Gordon Brown than Tony Blair currently, and lest we forget, the latter is the only Labour leader to have won an election since 1974. Think image, as Blairites would say…

Starmer needs to scour his colleagues for some pizzazz. Anneliese Dodds at the Treasury is simply too earnest, for example, and Lisa Nandy as Shadow Foreign Secretary, is underused.

Post pandemic, make us think but also make us smile. Be those people you wouldn’t mind having a drink with. In that way, Labour will get under Boris Johnson’s skin and, at the same time, make more electoral headway.

It used to be easy to say what the Tories stood for; preservation of institutions, free markets, low taxes, a smaller yet fairly compassionate State, controlled deficits, a belief in the individual and support for aspiration. Essentially being a Tory was being conservative with a small ‘c’ and whilst the Conservative Party was always willing to compromise to win and hold on to power (the Labour Party has never got this except under Blair), such flexibility only went so far. You always knew where the Tories’ heart lay.

So where is the Tory Party now under Johnson? The answer is hard to fathom.

Under his leadership, the Conservative Party has mostly been defined by its Brexit stance. To be dominated by one issue never used to be in the Tories’ makeup and abandoning its broader-based raison d’etre has led to the departure of some of its most able parliamentarians.

In driving Brexit forward, the Government attacked Parliament and the courts. It berated experts and tried to ‘tear up’ the unwritten constitution. Irony upon irony prevailed as an unscrupulous old Etonian, advised by an alleged anarchist who wasn’t even a Party member, essentially launched class warfare but positioned the Tories on the side of the ordinary person versus the elites.

Destructive but effective. As a strategy, it worked. An 80-seat majority based on a slew of former Labour seats in the North and Midlands has given the Tories a further 5 years of untrammelled power. But the victory was based on Opposition splits over Brexit and in particular the move of the Labour Party to the hard, unpatriotic Left. Such opportunities for victory are unlikely to be available in the future.

Confusing signals from imminent budgets?

And, as the Tories seek to chart a path of post-pandemic recovery, they continue to lose their identity over economics and their reputation for skilful flexibility and prudence. There are budgets scheduled for both March and November, in part to confront the massive Covid-related deficit, but the brakes had already come off public spending long before the pandemic. Now, in refusing to abandon its manifesto pledges of not increasing income tax, national insurance and VAT, which represent 64% of tax revenues, the Government is left with few options but to attack entrepreneurialism. It is mooted that Corporation Tax and Capital Gains Tax will soar, whilst a property tax may also be introduced. And the pandemic-dominated budget deficit will continue to expand exponentially as the government continues with HS2 and other initiatives to ‘level up’ the North with the South. Some measures of course will be very welcome but not all, as intrusive State intervention, not always economic, ceases to be a Tory anathema.

Brexit, for the time being at least, is fading into the background and management of the Coronavirus will dominate political dialogue for some time. But inevitably, two party politics will become competitive again, particularly if the accusation of Johnsonian incompetence sticks. The latter is becoming less likely as he is potentially floated off the Covid rocks with a successful vaccine roll-out. However, in the face of a generally more competent, moderate Labour Party, better suited to arguing for a continuing increase in the role of Government, it is hard to identify what alternative the Tories offer and why you would vote for them. This loss of identity may cost the Government dear in the medium term but, by then, one doubts the current Prime Minister will be around to care.