King's Speech 2024: Can Keir Starmer Really Defeat 'The Snake Oil Charm Of Populism'?

By any measure, today’s King’s Speech contains a packed legislative agenda for Keir Starmer’s first year in office.

Since 2010, the average number of bills contained in the monarch’s “most gracious speech to both houses of parliament” is 20. Today’s had 40.

The prime minister was also clear about what’s at stake in the years ahead.

“The fight for trust is the battle that defines our political era,” he said. “It is only by serving the interests of working people, and delivering real change that transforms lives, that we can begin to restore people’s faiths that politics can be a force for good.

“The challenges we face require determined, patient work and serious solutions, rather than the temptation of the easy answer. The snake oil charm of populism may sound seductive, but it drives us into the dead end of further division and greater disappointment.”

So the PM is clear that to defeat the likes of Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage, the government must deliver on its promises.

To that end, Labour’s programme for government tells us a lot about his priorities for his first year in Downing Street.

The big ticket legislation is all in there - VAT on private school fees, setting up GB Energy, renationalising the railways, creating a Border Security Command, more protection for renters and new planning rules to boost housebuilding.

Other major reforms include a major package of workers’ rights, greater devolution to local communities, a phased smoking ban, the end of conversion therapy and the end of hereditary peers sitting in the House of Lords.

Downing Street officials have also confirmed that plans to reduce the voting age to 16 and forcing Lords to retire at 80 will be introduced later in the parliament.

But Starmer knows better than anyone that failing to deliver on his promise to change the country runs the risk of driving even more voters into the arms of the populists he rejects.

His government’s over-arching ambition of massively boosting economic growth must be achieved in order to deliver the prosperity which will fund the government’s spending plans without hiking taxes or introducing a further wave of austerity.

Failure to do so will further fuel the public’s cynicism in mainstream politics, thereby creating the perfect conditions for the Johnsons and Farages of this world to thrive.

“This King’s Speech returns politics to serious government, returns government to service and returns service to the interests of working people,” the PM said.

“That is the path of national renewal. We start that journey immediately.”

With this packed King’s Speech, Starmer has shown that he is in a hurry to make good on his promise to change the country. If he fails to do so, the “snake oil charm of populism” may start to look very alluring to an angry electorate