The UK has a new Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, and Labour is back in power.
We discuss what this means for Britain, including Starmer's background, his proposed policies, and the challenges that lie ahead.
[00:00:05] Hello, hello hello, and welcome to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:00:12] The show where you can listen to fascinating stories, and learn weird and wonderful things about the world at the same time as improving your English.
[00:00:21] I'm Alastair Budge, and today we are going to be talking about British politics.
[00:00:26] As you probably know, just over a month ago there was a general election in the United Kingdom, which resulted in a new government and a new Prime Minister.
[00:00:36] So in this episode, we are going to talk about what this means, who the new Prime Minister is, what are some of the greatest challenges facing him and his party, what might lie in store for the United Kingdom, and we’ll even learn the meaning and political implications of the unusual acronym, NIMBY.
[00:00:56] OK then, let’s get right into it and talk about the results and consequences of the UK general election.
[00:01:05] You might remember an episode from a couple of months ago where we talked about the then-upcoming UK general election.
[00:01:13] The Prime Minister at the time, Rishi Sunak, had decided to call a surprise general election, which was to be held on July 4th.
[00:01:22] Many people, myself included, wondered why.
[00:01:27] It seemed like a strange decision.
[00:01:29] It was a gamble, the Conservatives had awful approval ratings, and it seemed highly unlikely that Rishi Sunak and his party, The Conservatives, would be able to hold on to power.
[00:01:43] In fact, all of the polls suggested that it would lead to a catastrophic defeat.
[00:01:50] And these polls were correct.
[00:01:53] As the results came in it was clear that the British people had voted the Conservatives out of power, and Labour gained a majority.
[00:02:03] The UK would have a new Prime Minister in the form of Keir Starmer, and Labour would be back in power after 14 years in opposition.
[00:02:14] Now, we are not going to talk too much about the results of the election here, but rather focus on the proposed policies of Keir Starmer and the Labour Party.
[00:02:27] Before we do that, though, we need a little bit of background which I hope will help you understand why Labour won, and why the Labour Party has the focusses that it has.
[00:02:40] A good clue for this can be found in the title of the Labour Party manifesto.
[00:02:46] In fact, the title is only one word: Change.
[00:02:52] Now, of course, change is always a key theme of any election; any politician who is not in power always campaigns on a message of change, because they are asking the public to vote for precisely that.
[00:03:07] But in the case of British politics, it was especially important.
[00:03:13] The Conservative Party, or the Tory Party as it is more commonly known, had been in power since 2010, and despite its promises to be careful stewards of the British economy, British living standards and real wages have stagnated, they have not grown.
[00:03:33] In fact, across large parts of the country, many people felt like life had got worse under the Tories, and enough was enough.
[00:03:45] What’s more, there was scandal on scandal, the Conservatives had gone through five different Prime Ministers, and many commentators were saying that they had wrecked the British economy and put their cronies–their friends, family and associates–above the interests of the British people.
[00:04:05] For many people, anything was better than another 5 years of Conservative government.
[00:04:12] Given this, Keir Starmer, the leader of the Labour Party, had a relatively easy path to power.
[00:04:20] He didn’t need to be particularly charismatic, he didn’t need any huge or revolutionary policy ideas, he needed to present himself as a serious and capable individual, and most importantly, a breath of fresh air compared to the Tories.
[00:04:38] The election was his to lose.
[00:04:42] Now, let me tell you a little bit about Keir Starmer himself before we get into his policies.
[00:04:49] As opposed to recent Conservative Prime Ministers such as David Cameron, Boris Johnson and most recently Rishi Sunak, Keir Starmer did not go to an elite, expensive, private school.
[00:05:02] He had a normal, middle-class upbringing, the child of a nurse and a toolmaker, which he spoke about extensively during the election campaign to portray himself as a man of the people, unlike his Tory counterpart, Rishi Sunak, who is a former Goldman Sachs banker and is married to the daughter of an Indian multi-billionaire.
[00:05:23] Although Keir Starmer was active in politics from a young age, joining the Labour Party at the age of 16, he didn’t go straight into politics.
[00:05:33] After graduating from Oxford University he became a human rights lawyer before switching to becoming a public prosecutor, prosecuting people accused of crimes on behalf of the state.
[00:05:45] And he only entered politics relatively late in life, in 2015 at the age of 53.
[00:05:54] As to his character, well, he has made it part of his public persona to keep a relatively low profile.
[00:06:02] He presents himself as an honest, serious and trustworthy man, a capable operator who will get on with the job of running the country rather than spending his time campaigning or doing interviews or press shows.
[00:06:18] And this is a key part of his appeal after the chaos of 14 years of the Conservatives.
[00:06:25] So, what are the big challenges that lie ahead for Britain, and what does Keir Starmer and the Labour Party propose to do about them?
[00:06:34] Well, to go back to the manifesto again, there are six key items on the “first steps” for change. Number one: Deliver economic stability.
[00:06:46] Number two: Cut NHS waiting times. NHS is short for the National Health Service.
[00:06:53] Number three: Launch a new Border Security Command.
[00:06:57] Number four: Set up Great British Energy.
[00:07:00] Number five: Crack down on antisocial behaviour.
[00:07:04] And the final one: Recruit 6,500 new teachers, paid for by removing tax breaks on private school fees.
[00:07:14] Now, we aren’t going to go into each of these policies one by one, but it gives you some sense of the overall vision the Labour party has for Britain.
[00:07:24] It touches on lots of key concerns for British voters: the economy, the NHS, immigration, energy prices, policing and education.
[00:07:35] As you may know, the Labour Party is traditionally left of centre, and for much of its time in opposition, under the leadership of Ed Milliband and then Jeremy Corbyn, it was significantly left-wing.
[00:07:50] Keir Starmer has brought the party back towards the centre, and as you can see, his Labour Party is more about fairness and equality than drastic wealth distribution.
[00:08:02] Yes, there is the removal of a tax break on private schools, but during the election campaign he promised to not raise taxes on companies nor will he increase income or consumption taxes on individuals.
[00:08:16] His proposal to the British public is that the country can invest in things like the NHS and increased border security primarily through economic growth and sensible good governance.
[00:08:30] The Tory government was such a mess, he says, it chased vanity projects such as sending asylum seekers to Rwanda, that simply by sticking to good governance and delivering economic growth the country will be able to get back on its feet and pay for new programmes and services.
[00:08:50] This being said, his government is likely to be the most interventionist government in recent history, certainly in my lifetime.
[00:08:59] By interventionist, I mean involved in areas of society and the economy that other governments either outsourced to the private sector or just didn’t get involved in in the first place.
[00:09:12] He has plans to renationalise part of the British railways, he wants to create a national British energy organisation, he wants the state to be more involved than it was under previous Conservative and Labour governments.
[00:09:26] Starmer’s view is that the free market alone can’t be relied on to deliver economic growth and prosperity, and that limited government intervention is required to make sure that the benefits of economic growth are felt by all.
[00:09:42] Perhaps nowhere is this more evident than in his housing policy.
[00:09:48] Now, as some background, like in many countries, the UK has a dire housing shortage.
[00:09:56] The country simply doesn’t build enough homes to keep up with rising demand.
[00:10:02] And as anyone who has ever taken an economics class will know, if demand outstrips supply, prices rise.
[00:10:11] And in the UK the cost of housing has increased dramatically, making it harder and harder for young people to get on the property ladder, which is the term we use to mean buying your first house.
[00:10:25] When the Conservatives came into power, in May of 2010, the average house price in the UK was £170,000, but last year it reached almost £300,000.
[00:10:40] Or to give you the figures in Euros, the average house price went from around €195,000 to €350,000.
[00:10:51] And this is the UK average.
[00:10:54] In some parts of the country, they have increased by an even greater margin.
[00:10:59] And this has not been followed by an increase in wages, in average salaries.
[00:11:05] What this has led to is an entire generation of young British people for whom house ownership is a pipe dream, something that will be impossible to achieve without a large amount of help from their parents, and they end up stuck in a cycle of ever-increasing rent and never being able to save enough to put down a deposit on their own property.
[00:11:29] The Conservative government did pledge to tackle the problem and vowed to get the number of new homes built each year up to 300,000, but the most they managed was 250,000.
[00:11:42] It just isn’t enough to meet demand.
[00:11:45] And this isn’t because of laziness or incompetence or a lack of homebuilding companies. It is a question of regulation.
[00:11:55] Like in most countries, the UK has some pretty strict laws and regulations about where houses can be built.
[00:12:04] Fair enough, you might think, someone can’t just buy a plot of land next to a picturesque river or forest and decide to put up a block of flats.
[00:12:14] However the regulations are so strict that it is difficult for any land to be greenlighted for new housing developments, and the result is that housebuilders aren’t able to build enough houses to meet the demand.
[00:12:29] As part of his election campaign, Keir Starmer promised that his government would build 1.5 million homes during its 5-year term in government.
[00:12:40] What’s more, a good proportion of these houses will be earmarked as affordable housing, to be made available for people on lower incomes.
[00:12:50] And to clarify, the state isn’t building these houses itself, what the Labour Party is pledging is to eliminate or at least loosen planning regulations so that housing can be built in areas where it was previously not.
[00:13:05] Now, this sounds perfectly sensible in practice.
[00:13:09] The UK’s housing shortage is undeniable, and there is plenty of room to build.
[00:13:15] But not everyone is so keen.
[00:13:18] And it’s here that I’d like to introduce you to an acronym. It is NIMBY - NIMBY - and it stands for “not in my back yard”.
[00:13:32] It is used to describe people who like the idea of something happening in general but they don’t want it to happen close to them.
[00:13:42] Some political commentators have pointed out that this ambitious goal of 1.5 million new homes might have won Labour some new voters, people whose children might be struggling to get on to the property ladder, or just people who know about the UK housing shortage and understand that building more houses is “the right thing to do”.
[00:14:03] But they sort of assume that these houses would be built somewhere else, not something that disturbs them or affects their house price.
[00:14:13] And when they get a leaflet through their letterbox announcing that the field next door will be turned into a new housing development or even that they hear the sound of diggers and bulldozers moving in across the road, well they might not be so happy with Keir Starmer.
[00:14:30] And another related element to NIMBYism is to do with taxes.
[00:14:36] Labour has promised to increase public spending, but during the election campaign, Keir Starmer pledged to not increase taxes on working people.
[00:14:48] As to where the extra money to pay for the additional public spending would come from, the Labour Party has remained quite tight-lipped, not saying too much on the subject.
[00:14:59] It is widely believed that the Labour Party will raise taxes later this year, principally targeting the wealthy.
[00:15:06] Of course, the money needs to come from somewhere, and throughout the election campaign one of Rishi Sunak’s main messages about why someone should vote for the Conservatives, not Labour, was that “a vote for Labour will mean paying more taxes”.
[00:15:24] And, probably just like in your country, people like the idea of better public services and more government spending but they don’t want to pay for it themselves.
[00:15:34] In other words, it needs to come from someone else’s taxes.
[00:15:39] And if or when some Labour voters see that the number on their paycheck is a little smaller or that their tax bill is bigger than the previous year’s, well only the most upstanding citizens will think “no problem, that’s the price we all need to pay for better public services”.
[00:15:59] Now, moving on to the next and final point.
[00:16:02] I know that many of you will be listening to this somewhere in Europe, so you might be curious about what Keir Starmer thinks about the EU, what the Labour Party’s victory means for you, or at least what it might mean for the UK’s relationship with Europe.
[00:16:20] Keir Starmer voted to remain in the EU, he was pro-European Union.
[00:16:27] This doesn’t mean that the UK is now going to rejoin the EU, or even have a referendum on whether to do so, but Keir Starmer has pledged to work more closely with European leaders and try to fix what he sees as messy deals left by the Conservatives.
[00:16:46] What may well happen, commentators have speculated, is that there will be some small elements of EU membership that might be reintroduced, such as a deal that allows young people from EU countries to come to the UK to live for up to 4 years, and young British people to do the same thing in Europe, but this is conjecture at this point, nothing like this has been formally announced.
[00:17:13] What is certain, though, is that from the perspective of proximity with Europe, the victory of the Labour Party is a positive development.
[00:17:23] So, to wrap things up, Britain has a new Prime Minister, in the form of Keir Starmer.
[00:17:29] The Conservatives are out, the Labour Party is in.
[00:17:33] The Labour Party has a large mandate from the British public, it won by a large margin and it has a comfortable majority in parliament.
[00:17:43] As Keir Starmer wrote shortly after becoming Prime Minister, “Rebuilding our country will not happen overnight. The challenges we face require determined, patient work and serious solutions”.
[00:17:57] He has five years to knuckle down and, as he says, get the country back on its feet.
[00:18:04] And he has tens of millions of people hoping he’ll be able to manage it.
[00:18:10] OK then, that is it for today's episode on what’s next for the new Labour government.
[00:18:16] I hope it's been an interesting one, and that even if you aren’t a close political watcher or a follower of British politics, well that you've learnt something new.
[00:18:25] As always, I would love to know what you thought about this episode.
[00:18:29] Do you live in the UK?
[00:18:30] If so, what do you think about Keir Starmer and the Labour Party? Do you think he is focussing on the right things?
[00:18:37] I would love to know, so let’s get this discussion started.
[00:18:41] You can head right into our community forum, which is at community.leonardoenglish.com and get chatting away to other curious minds.
[00:18:49] You've been listening to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:18:54] I'm Alastair Budge, you stay safe, and I'll catch you in the next episode.
[00:00:05] Hello, hello hello, and welcome to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:00:12] The show where you can listen to fascinating stories, and learn weird and wonderful things about the world at the same time as improving your English.
[00:00:21] I'm Alastair Budge, and today we are going to be talking about British politics.
[00:00:26] As you probably know, just over a month ago there was a general election in the United Kingdom, which resulted in a new government and a new Prime Minister.
[00:00:36] So in this episode, we are going to talk about what this means, who the new Prime Minister is, what are some of the greatest challenges facing him and his party, what might lie in store for the United Kingdom, and we’ll even learn the meaning and political implications of the unusual acronym, NIMBY.
[00:00:56] OK then, let’s get right into it and talk about the results and consequences of the UK general election.
[00:01:05] You might remember an episode from a couple of months ago where we talked about the then-upcoming UK general election.
[00:01:13] The Prime Minister at the time, Rishi Sunak, had decided to call a surprise general election, which was to be held on July 4th.
[00:01:22] Many people, myself included, wondered why.
[00:01:27] It seemed like a strange decision.
[00:01:29] It was a gamble, the Conservatives had awful approval ratings, and it seemed highly unlikely that Rishi Sunak and his party, The Conservatives, would be able to hold on to power.
[00:01:43] In fact, all of the polls suggested that it would lead to a catastrophic defeat.
[00:01:50] And these polls were correct.
[00:01:53] As the results came in it was clear that the British people had voted the Conservatives out of power, and Labour gained a majority.
[00:02:03] The UK would have a new Prime Minister in the form of Keir Starmer, and Labour would be back in power after 14 years in opposition.
[00:02:14] Now, we are not going to talk too much about the results of the election here, but rather focus on the proposed policies of Keir Starmer and the Labour Party.
[00:02:27] Before we do that, though, we need a little bit of background which I hope will help you understand why Labour won, and why the Labour Party has the focusses that it has.
[00:02:40] A good clue for this can be found in the title of the Labour Party manifesto.
[00:02:46] In fact, the title is only one word: Change.
[00:02:52] Now, of course, change is always a key theme of any election; any politician who is not in power always campaigns on a message of change, because they are asking the public to vote for precisely that.
[00:03:07] But in the case of British politics, it was especially important.
[00:03:13] The Conservative Party, or the Tory Party as it is more commonly known, had been in power since 2010, and despite its promises to be careful stewards of the British economy, British living standards and real wages have stagnated, they have not grown.
[00:03:33] In fact, across large parts of the country, many people felt like life had got worse under the Tories, and enough was enough.
[00:03:45] What’s more, there was scandal on scandal, the Conservatives had gone through five different Prime Ministers, and many commentators were saying that they had wrecked the British economy and put their cronies–their friends, family and associates–above the interests of the British people.
[00:04:05] For many people, anything was better than another 5 years of Conservative government.
[00:04:12] Given this, Keir Starmer, the leader of the Labour Party, had a relatively easy path to power.
[00:04:20] He didn’t need to be particularly charismatic, he didn’t need any huge or revolutionary policy ideas, he needed to present himself as a serious and capable individual, and most importantly, a breath of fresh air compared to the Tories.
[00:04:38] The election was his to lose.
[00:04:42] Now, let me tell you a little bit about Keir Starmer himself before we get into his policies.
[00:04:49] As opposed to recent Conservative Prime Ministers such as David Cameron, Boris Johnson and most recently Rishi Sunak, Keir Starmer did not go to an elite, expensive, private school.
[00:05:02] He had a normal, middle-class upbringing, the child of a nurse and a toolmaker, which he spoke about extensively during the election campaign to portray himself as a man of the people, unlike his Tory counterpart, Rishi Sunak, who is a former Goldman Sachs banker and is married to the daughter of an Indian multi-billionaire.
[00:05:23] Although Keir Starmer was active in politics from a young age, joining the Labour Party at the age of 16, he didn’t go straight into politics.
[00:05:33] After graduating from Oxford University he became a human rights lawyer before switching to becoming a public prosecutor, prosecuting people accused of crimes on behalf of the state.
[00:05:45] And he only entered politics relatively late in life, in 2015 at the age of 53.
[00:05:54] As to his character, well, he has made it part of his public persona to keep a relatively low profile.
[00:06:02] He presents himself as an honest, serious and trustworthy man, a capable operator who will get on with the job of running the country rather than spending his time campaigning or doing interviews or press shows.
[00:06:18] And this is a key part of his appeal after the chaos of 14 years of the Conservatives.
[00:06:25] So, what are the big challenges that lie ahead for Britain, and what does Keir Starmer and the Labour Party propose to do about them?
[00:06:34] Well, to go back to the manifesto again, there are six key items on the “first steps” for change. Number one: Deliver economic stability.
[00:06:46] Number two: Cut NHS waiting times. NHS is short for the National Health Service.
[00:06:53] Number three: Launch a new Border Security Command.
[00:06:57] Number four: Set up Great British Energy.
[00:07:00] Number five: Crack down on antisocial behaviour.
[00:07:04] And the final one: Recruit 6,500 new teachers, paid for by removing tax breaks on private school fees.
[00:07:14] Now, we aren’t going to go into each of these policies one by one, but it gives you some sense of the overall vision the Labour party has for Britain.
[00:07:24] It touches on lots of key concerns for British voters: the economy, the NHS, immigration, energy prices, policing and education.
[00:07:35] As you may know, the Labour Party is traditionally left of centre, and for much of its time in opposition, under the leadership of Ed Milliband and then Jeremy Corbyn, it was significantly left-wing.
[00:07:50] Keir Starmer has brought the party back towards the centre, and as you can see, his Labour Party is more about fairness and equality than drastic wealth distribution.
[00:08:02] Yes, there is the removal of a tax break on private schools, but during the election campaign he promised to not raise taxes on companies nor will he increase income or consumption taxes on individuals.
[00:08:16] His proposal to the British public is that the country can invest in things like the NHS and increased border security primarily through economic growth and sensible good governance.
[00:08:30] The Tory government was such a mess, he says, it chased vanity projects such as sending asylum seekers to Rwanda, that simply by sticking to good governance and delivering economic growth the country will be able to get back on its feet and pay for new programmes and services.
[00:08:50] This being said, his government is likely to be the most interventionist government in recent history, certainly in my lifetime.
[00:08:59] By interventionist, I mean involved in areas of society and the economy that other governments either outsourced to the private sector or just didn’t get involved in in the first place.
[00:09:12] He has plans to renationalise part of the British railways, he wants to create a national British energy organisation, he wants the state to be more involved than it was under previous Conservative and Labour governments.
[00:09:26] Starmer’s view is that the free market alone can’t be relied on to deliver economic growth and prosperity, and that limited government intervention is required to make sure that the benefits of economic growth are felt by all.
[00:09:42] Perhaps nowhere is this more evident than in his housing policy.
[00:09:48] Now, as some background, like in many countries, the UK has a dire housing shortage.
[00:09:56] The country simply doesn’t build enough homes to keep up with rising demand.
[00:10:02] And as anyone who has ever taken an economics class will know, if demand outstrips supply, prices rise.
[00:10:11] And in the UK the cost of housing has increased dramatically, making it harder and harder for young people to get on the property ladder, which is the term we use to mean buying your first house.
[00:10:25] When the Conservatives came into power, in May of 2010, the average house price in the UK was £170,000, but last year it reached almost £300,000.
[00:10:40] Or to give you the figures in Euros, the average house price went from around €195,000 to €350,000.
[00:10:51] And this is the UK average.
[00:10:54] In some parts of the country, they have increased by an even greater margin.
[00:10:59] And this has not been followed by an increase in wages, in average salaries.
[00:11:05] What this has led to is an entire generation of young British people for whom house ownership is a pipe dream, something that will be impossible to achieve without a large amount of help from their parents, and they end up stuck in a cycle of ever-increasing rent and never being able to save enough to put down a deposit on their own property.
[00:11:29] The Conservative government did pledge to tackle the problem and vowed to get the number of new homes built each year up to 300,000, but the most they managed was 250,000.
[00:11:42] It just isn’t enough to meet demand.
[00:11:45] And this isn’t because of laziness or incompetence or a lack of homebuilding companies. It is a question of regulation.
[00:11:55] Like in most countries, the UK has some pretty strict laws and regulations about where houses can be built.
[00:12:04] Fair enough, you might think, someone can’t just buy a plot of land next to a picturesque river or forest and decide to put up a block of flats.
[00:12:14] However the regulations are so strict that it is difficult for any land to be greenlighted for new housing developments, and the result is that housebuilders aren’t able to build enough houses to meet the demand.
[00:12:29] As part of his election campaign, Keir Starmer promised that his government would build 1.5 million homes during its 5-year term in government.
[00:12:40] What’s more, a good proportion of these houses will be earmarked as affordable housing, to be made available for people on lower incomes.
[00:12:50] And to clarify, the state isn’t building these houses itself, what the Labour Party is pledging is to eliminate or at least loosen planning regulations so that housing can be built in areas where it was previously not.
[00:13:05] Now, this sounds perfectly sensible in practice.
[00:13:09] The UK’s housing shortage is undeniable, and there is plenty of room to build.
[00:13:15] But not everyone is so keen.
[00:13:18] And it’s here that I’d like to introduce you to an acronym. It is NIMBY - NIMBY - and it stands for “not in my back yard”.
[00:13:32] It is used to describe people who like the idea of something happening in general but they don’t want it to happen close to them.
[00:13:42] Some political commentators have pointed out that this ambitious goal of 1.5 million new homes might have won Labour some new voters, people whose children might be struggling to get on to the property ladder, or just people who know about the UK housing shortage and understand that building more houses is “the right thing to do”.
[00:14:03] But they sort of assume that these houses would be built somewhere else, not something that disturbs them or affects their house price.
[00:14:13] And when they get a leaflet through their letterbox announcing that the field next door will be turned into a new housing development or even that they hear the sound of diggers and bulldozers moving in across the road, well they might not be so happy with Keir Starmer.
[00:14:30] And another related element to NIMBYism is to do with taxes.
[00:14:36] Labour has promised to increase public spending, but during the election campaign, Keir Starmer pledged to not increase taxes on working people.
[00:14:48] As to where the extra money to pay for the additional public spending would come from, the Labour Party has remained quite tight-lipped, not saying too much on the subject.
[00:14:59] It is widely believed that the Labour Party will raise taxes later this year, principally targeting the wealthy.
[00:15:06] Of course, the money needs to come from somewhere, and throughout the election campaign one of Rishi Sunak’s main messages about why someone should vote for the Conservatives, not Labour, was that “a vote for Labour will mean paying more taxes”.
[00:15:24] And, probably just like in your country, people like the idea of better public services and more government spending but they don’t want to pay for it themselves.
[00:15:34] In other words, it needs to come from someone else’s taxes.
[00:15:39] And if or when some Labour voters see that the number on their paycheck is a little smaller or that their tax bill is bigger than the previous year’s, well only the most upstanding citizens will think “no problem, that’s the price we all need to pay for better public services”.
[00:15:59] Now, moving on to the next and final point.
[00:16:02] I know that many of you will be listening to this somewhere in Europe, so you might be curious about what Keir Starmer thinks about the EU, what the Labour Party’s victory means for you, or at least what it might mean for the UK’s relationship with Europe.
[00:16:20] Keir Starmer voted to remain in the EU, he was pro-European Union.
[00:16:27] This doesn’t mean that the UK is now going to rejoin the EU, or even have a referendum on whether to do so, but Keir Starmer has pledged to work more closely with European leaders and try to fix what he sees as messy deals left by the Conservatives.
[00:16:46] What may well happen, commentators have speculated, is that there will be some small elements of EU membership that might be reintroduced, such as a deal that allows young people from EU countries to come to the UK to live for up to 4 years, and young British people to do the same thing in Europe, but this is conjecture at this point, nothing like this has been formally announced.
[00:17:13] What is certain, though, is that from the perspective of proximity with Europe, the victory of the Labour Party is a positive development.
[00:17:23] So, to wrap things up, Britain has a new Prime Minister, in the form of Keir Starmer.
[00:17:29] The Conservatives are out, the Labour Party is in.
[00:17:33] The Labour Party has a large mandate from the British public, it won by a large margin and it has a comfortable majority in parliament.
[00:17:43] As Keir Starmer wrote shortly after becoming Prime Minister, “Rebuilding our country will not happen overnight. The challenges we face require determined, patient work and serious solutions”.
[00:17:57] He has five years to knuckle down and, as he says, get the country back on its feet.
[00:18:04] And he has tens of millions of people hoping he’ll be able to manage it.
[00:18:10] OK then, that is it for today's episode on what’s next for the new Labour government.
[00:18:16] I hope it's been an interesting one, and that even if you aren’t a close political watcher or a follower of British politics, well that you've learnt something new.
[00:18:25] As always, I would love to know what you thought about this episode.
[00:18:29] Do you live in the UK?
[00:18:30] If so, what do you think about Keir Starmer and the Labour Party? Do you think he is focussing on the right things?
[00:18:37] I would love to know, so let’s get this discussion started.
[00:18:41] You can head right into our community forum, which is at community.leonardoenglish.com and get chatting away to other curious minds.
[00:18:49] You've been listening to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:18:54] I'm Alastair Budge, you stay safe, and I'll catch you in the next episode.
[00:00:05] Hello, hello hello, and welcome to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:00:12] The show where you can listen to fascinating stories, and learn weird and wonderful things about the world at the same time as improving your English.
[00:00:21] I'm Alastair Budge, and today we are going to be talking about British politics.
[00:00:26] As you probably know, just over a month ago there was a general election in the United Kingdom, which resulted in a new government and a new Prime Minister.
[00:00:36] So in this episode, we are going to talk about what this means, who the new Prime Minister is, what are some of the greatest challenges facing him and his party, what might lie in store for the United Kingdom, and we’ll even learn the meaning and political implications of the unusual acronym, NIMBY.
[00:00:56] OK then, let’s get right into it and talk about the results and consequences of the UK general election.
[00:01:05] You might remember an episode from a couple of months ago where we talked about the then-upcoming UK general election.
[00:01:13] The Prime Minister at the time, Rishi Sunak, had decided to call a surprise general election, which was to be held on July 4th.
[00:01:22] Many people, myself included, wondered why.
[00:01:27] It seemed like a strange decision.
[00:01:29] It was a gamble, the Conservatives had awful approval ratings, and it seemed highly unlikely that Rishi Sunak and his party, The Conservatives, would be able to hold on to power.
[00:01:43] In fact, all of the polls suggested that it would lead to a catastrophic defeat.
[00:01:50] And these polls were correct.
[00:01:53] As the results came in it was clear that the British people had voted the Conservatives out of power, and Labour gained a majority.
[00:02:03] The UK would have a new Prime Minister in the form of Keir Starmer, and Labour would be back in power after 14 years in opposition.
[00:02:14] Now, we are not going to talk too much about the results of the election here, but rather focus on the proposed policies of Keir Starmer and the Labour Party.
[00:02:27] Before we do that, though, we need a little bit of background which I hope will help you understand why Labour won, and why the Labour Party has the focusses that it has.
[00:02:40] A good clue for this can be found in the title of the Labour Party manifesto.
[00:02:46] In fact, the title is only one word: Change.
[00:02:52] Now, of course, change is always a key theme of any election; any politician who is not in power always campaigns on a message of change, because they are asking the public to vote for precisely that.
[00:03:07] But in the case of British politics, it was especially important.
[00:03:13] The Conservative Party, or the Tory Party as it is more commonly known, had been in power since 2010, and despite its promises to be careful stewards of the British economy, British living standards and real wages have stagnated, they have not grown.
[00:03:33] In fact, across large parts of the country, many people felt like life had got worse under the Tories, and enough was enough.
[00:03:45] What’s more, there was scandal on scandal, the Conservatives had gone through five different Prime Ministers, and many commentators were saying that they had wrecked the British economy and put their cronies–their friends, family and associates–above the interests of the British people.
[00:04:05] For many people, anything was better than another 5 years of Conservative government.
[00:04:12] Given this, Keir Starmer, the leader of the Labour Party, had a relatively easy path to power.
[00:04:20] He didn’t need to be particularly charismatic, he didn’t need any huge or revolutionary policy ideas, he needed to present himself as a serious and capable individual, and most importantly, a breath of fresh air compared to the Tories.
[00:04:38] The election was his to lose.
[00:04:42] Now, let me tell you a little bit about Keir Starmer himself before we get into his policies.
[00:04:49] As opposed to recent Conservative Prime Ministers such as David Cameron, Boris Johnson and most recently Rishi Sunak, Keir Starmer did not go to an elite, expensive, private school.
[00:05:02] He had a normal, middle-class upbringing, the child of a nurse and a toolmaker, which he spoke about extensively during the election campaign to portray himself as a man of the people, unlike his Tory counterpart, Rishi Sunak, who is a former Goldman Sachs banker and is married to the daughter of an Indian multi-billionaire.
[00:05:23] Although Keir Starmer was active in politics from a young age, joining the Labour Party at the age of 16, he didn’t go straight into politics.
[00:05:33] After graduating from Oxford University he became a human rights lawyer before switching to becoming a public prosecutor, prosecuting people accused of crimes on behalf of the state.
[00:05:45] And he only entered politics relatively late in life, in 2015 at the age of 53.
[00:05:54] As to his character, well, he has made it part of his public persona to keep a relatively low profile.
[00:06:02] He presents himself as an honest, serious and trustworthy man, a capable operator who will get on with the job of running the country rather than spending his time campaigning or doing interviews or press shows.
[00:06:18] And this is a key part of his appeal after the chaos of 14 years of the Conservatives.
[00:06:25] So, what are the big challenges that lie ahead for Britain, and what does Keir Starmer and the Labour Party propose to do about them?
[00:06:34] Well, to go back to the manifesto again, there are six key items on the “first steps” for change. Number one: Deliver economic stability.
[00:06:46] Number two: Cut NHS waiting times. NHS is short for the National Health Service.
[00:06:53] Number three: Launch a new Border Security Command.
[00:06:57] Number four: Set up Great British Energy.
[00:07:00] Number five: Crack down on antisocial behaviour.
[00:07:04] And the final one: Recruit 6,500 new teachers, paid for by removing tax breaks on private school fees.
[00:07:14] Now, we aren’t going to go into each of these policies one by one, but it gives you some sense of the overall vision the Labour party has for Britain.
[00:07:24] It touches on lots of key concerns for British voters: the economy, the NHS, immigration, energy prices, policing and education.
[00:07:35] As you may know, the Labour Party is traditionally left of centre, and for much of its time in opposition, under the leadership of Ed Milliband and then Jeremy Corbyn, it was significantly left-wing.
[00:07:50] Keir Starmer has brought the party back towards the centre, and as you can see, his Labour Party is more about fairness and equality than drastic wealth distribution.
[00:08:02] Yes, there is the removal of a tax break on private schools, but during the election campaign he promised to not raise taxes on companies nor will he increase income or consumption taxes on individuals.
[00:08:16] His proposal to the British public is that the country can invest in things like the NHS and increased border security primarily through economic growth and sensible good governance.
[00:08:30] The Tory government was such a mess, he says, it chased vanity projects such as sending asylum seekers to Rwanda, that simply by sticking to good governance and delivering economic growth the country will be able to get back on its feet and pay for new programmes and services.
[00:08:50] This being said, his government is likely to be the most interventionist government in recent history, certainly in my lifetime.
[00:08:59] By interventionist, I mean involved in areas of society and the economy that other governments either outsourced to the private sector or just didn’t get involved in in the first place.
[00:09:12] He has plans to renationalise part of the British railways, he wants to create a national British energy organisation, he wants the state to be more involved than it was under previous Conservative and Labour governments.
[00:09:26] Starmer’s view is that the free market alone can’t be relied on to deliver economic growth and prosperity, and that limited government intervention is required to make sure that the benefits of economic growth are felt by all.
[00:09:42] Perhaps nowhere is this more evident than in his housing policy.
[00:09:48] Now, as some background, like in many countries, the UK has a dire housing shortage.
[00:09:56] The country simply doesn’t build enough homes to keep up with rising demand.
[00:10:02] And as anyone who has ever taken an economics class will know, if demand outstrips supply, prices rise.
[00:10:11] And in the UK the cost of housing has increased dramatically, making it harder and harder for young people to get on the property ladder, which is the term we use to mean buying your first house.
[00:10:25] When the Conservatives came into power, in May of 2010, the average house price in the UK was £170,000, but last year it reached almost £300,000.
[00:10:40] Or to give you the figures in Euros, the average house price went from around €195,000 to €350,000.
[00:10:51] And this is the UK average.
[00:10:54] In some parts of the country, they have increased by an even greater margin.
[00:10:59] And this has not been followed by an increase in wages, in average salaries.
[00:11:05] What this has led to is an entire generation of young British people for whom house ownership is a pipe dream, something that will be impossible to achieve without a large amount of help from their parents, and they end up stuck in a cycle of ever-increasing rent and never being able to save enough to put down a deposit on their own property.
[00:11:29] The Conservative government did pledge to tackle the problem and vowed to get the number of new homes built each year up to 300,000, but the most they managed was 250,000.
[00:11:42] It just isn’t enough to meet demand.
[00:11:45] And this isn’t because of laziness or incompetence or a lack of homebuilding companies. It is a question of regulation.
[00:11:55] Like in most countries, the UK has some pretty strict laws and regulations about where houses can be built.
[00:12:04] Fair enough, you might think, someone can’t just buy a plot of land next to a picturesque river or forest and decide to put up a block of flats.
[00:12:14] However the regulations are so strict that it is difficult for any land to be greenlighted for new housing developments, and the result is that housebuilders aren’t able to build enough houses to meet the demand.
[00:12:29] As part of his election campaign, Keir Starmer promised that his government would build 1.5 million homes during its 5-year term in government.
[00:12:40] What’s more, a good proportion of these houses will be earmarked as affordable housing, to be made available for people on lower incomes.
[00:12:50] And to clarify, the state isn’t building these houses itself, what the Labour Party is pledging is to eliminate or at least loosen planning regulations so that housing can be built in areas where it was previously not.
[00:13:05] Now, this sounds perfectly sensible in practice.
[00:13:09] The UK’s housing shortage is undeniable, and there is plenty of room to build.
[00:13:15] But not everyone is so keen.
[00:13:18] And it’s here that I’d like to introduce you to an acronym. It is NIMBY - NIMBY - and it stands for “not in my back yard”.
[00:13:32] It is used to describe people who like the idea of something happening in general but they don’t want it to happen close to them.
[00:13:42] Some political commentators have pointed out that this ambitious goal of 1.5 million new homes might have won Labour some new voters, people whose children might be struggling to get on to the property ladder, or just people who know about the UK housing shortage and understand that building more houses is “the right thing to do”.
[00:14:03] But they sort of assume that these houses would be built somewhere else, not something that disturbs them or affects their house price.
[00:14:13] And when they get a leaflet through their letterbox announcing that the field next door will be turned into a new housing development or even that they hear the sound of diggers and bulldozers moving in across the road, well they might not be so happy with Keir Starmer.
[00:14:30] And another related element to NIMBYism is to do with taxes.
[00:14:36] Labour has promised to increase public spending, but during the election campaign, Keir Starmer pledged to not increase taxes on working people.
[00:14:48] As to where the extra money to pay for the additional public spending would come from, the Labour Party has remained quite tight-lipped, not saying too much on the subject.
[00:14:59] It is widely believed that the Labour Party will raise taxes later this year, principally targeting the wealthy.
[00:15:06] Of course, the money needs to come from somewhere, and throughout the election campaign one of Rishi Sunak’s main messages about why someone should vote for the Conservatives, not Labour, was that “a vote for Labour will mean paying more taxes”.
[00:15:24] And, probably just like in your country, people like the idea of better public services and more government spending but they don’t want to pay for it themselves.
[00:15:34] In other words, it needs to come from someone else’s taxes.
[00:15:39] And if or when some Labour voters see that the number on their paycheck is a little smaller or that their tax bill is bigger than the previous year’s, well only the most upstanding citizens will think “no problem, that’s the price we all need to pay for better public services”.
[00:15:59] Now, moving on to the next and final point.
[00:16:02] I know that many of you will be listening to this somewhere in Europe, so you might be curious about what Keir Starmer thinks about the EU, what the Labour Party’s victory means for you, or at least what it might mean for the UK’s relationship with Europe.
[00:16:20] Keir Starmer voted to remain in the EU, he was pro-European Union.
[00:16:27] This doesn’t mean that the UK is now going to rejoin the EU, or even have a referendum on whether to do so, but Keir Starmer has pledged to work more closely with European leaders and try to fix what he sees as messy deals left by the Conservatives.
[00:16:46] What may well happen, commentators have speculated, is that there will be some small elements of EU membership that might be reintroduced, such as a deal that allows young people from EU countries to come to the UK to live for up to 4 years, and young British people to do the same thing in Europe, but this is conjecture at this point, nothing like this has been formally announced.
[00:17:13] What is certain, though, is that from the perspective of proximity with Europe, the victory of the Labour Party is a positive development.
[00:17:23] So, to wrap things up, Britain has a new Prime Minister, in the form of Keir Starmer.
[00:17:29] The Conservatives are out, the Labour Party is in.
[00:17:33] The Labour Party has a large mandate from the British public, it won by a large margin and it has a comfortable majority in parliament.
[00:17:43] As Keir Starmer wrote shortly after becoming Prime Minister, “Rebuilding our country will not happen overnight. The challenges we face require determined, patient work and serious solutions”.
[00:17:57] He has five years to knuckle down and, as he says, get the country back on its feet.
[00:18:04] And he has tens of millions of people hoping he’ll be able to manage it.
[00:18:10] OK then, that is it for today's episode on what’s next for the new Labour government.
[00:18:16] I hope it's been an interesting one, and that even if you aren’t a close political watcher or a follower of British politics, well that you've learnt something new.
[00:18:25] As always, I would love to know what you thought about this episode.
[00:18:29] Do you live in the UK?
[00:18:30] If so, what do you think about Keir Starmer and the Labour Party? Do you think he is focussing on the right things?
[00:18:37] I would love to know, so let’s get this discussion started.
[00:18:41] You can head right into our community forum, which is at community.leonardoenglish.com and get chatting away to other curious minds.
[00:18:49] You've been listening to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:18:54] I'm Alastair Budge, you stay safe, and I'll catch you in the next episode.
