Drawing no direct comparisons with the current contenders for the White House, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a president who obviously left behind a famous legacy. One of his few mistakes, however, was to invent the concept of “the first 100 days”.
Taking office during the Great Depression, FDR was rightly in a hurry to get things done and made Congress sit for a special three-month session to pass major bills, which ultimately built the foundation for the New Deal.
Ever since then politicians, particularly those of the same progressive persuasion, have put themselves under the same kind of pressure – or, more often, been landed with this arbitrary deadline by the media.
Such is the case now, at least according to the “New Deal for Working People”, which is Angela Rayner’s special project: “A Labour government will need to hit the ground running,” it declares. “That is why we will introduce legislation in parliament within 100 days of entering government. Stronger trade unions and collective bargaining will be key to tackling problems of insecurity, inequality, discrimination, enforcement and low pay.” The other commitment, poignant but essential, is to scrap the totemically useless Rwanda plan, something Jon Ashworth said would happen “on day one”.
All this, then, should be placed on the statute book by the 100th day of the Starmer administration, which is 13 October and eminently doable if – like FDR in 1933 – Keir Starmer makes the Commons forego some of its summer break.
Otherwise, Starmer’s “first steps” should come as no surprise. According to the party’s statement, they would be:
- Deliver economic stability with tough spending rules, so we can grow our economy and keep taxes, inflation and mortgages as low as possible
- Cut NHS waiting times with 40,000 more appointments each week, during evenings and weekends, paid for by cracking down on tax avoidance and non-dom loopholes
- Launch a new Border Security Command with hundreds of new specialist investigators and use counterterror powers to smash criminal boat gangs
- Set up Great British Energy, a publicly-owned clean power company, to cut bills for good and boost energy security, paid for by a windfall tax on oil and gas giants
- Crack down on antisocial behaviour, with more neighbourhood police paid for by ending wasteful contracts, tough new penalties for offenders, and a new network of youth hubs
- Recruit 6,500 new teachers in key subjects to set children up for life, work and the future, paid for by ending tax breaks for private schools
Even for Roosevelt, with all the resources of the US economy at his disposal, that lot would have been a challenge. In a Britain suffering from sluggish growth and labour shortages, some of those will be hard to fulfil in terms of meeting the expectations of an overexcited public.
There will be a Labour King’s Speech on 17 July, which will be part policy agenda and part propaganda, and no doubt will keep Starmer’s army of new ministers and MPs quite busy – an excellent way to prevent idle hands making mischief.
In image terms, three months of intense activity will do wonders for Starmer’s public perception. As leader of the opposition he was derided (unfairly) by Boris Johnson as a carper, a “human bollard” opposing stuff, and dubbed “Captain Hindsight” for his criticisms of the Tory government.
Now Starmer has the opportunity to turn himself into a man of action, both with a strong programme of domestic initiatives and popping up on the world stage – starting with the Nato summit on 9 July, marking its 75th anniversary (and the treaty was signed by a Labour foreign secretary, Ernest Bevin). Soon after, on 18 July, Starmer will host EU leaders including Emmanuel Macron and Olaf Scholz for the European Political Community summit at Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire.
Like many leaders before him, Starmer will grow in his role, and look and sound increasingly statesmanlike. He may never be glamorous, but he will carry the authority and respect his office commands. He’ll probably be a natural at it, and won’t begrudge his Friday evening family time.
The public will surely approve of 100 days of hard work, in the spirit of public service Starmer is always on about, and folk are rightly sceptical about the extremely long summer recess our MPs always take. It would go down well.
Ideally, Rachel Reeves, as the new chancellor, would introduce a mini-Budget and other measures that would also set the course for the public finances. Given the time needed for the Office for Budget Responsibility and the Treasury to do the necessary preparation, that may not arrive until September or October. Indeed the autumn will see yet more momentum as Labour enjoys its first party conference in government since 2009.
But that doesn’t preclude other immediate initiatives – and big ones too. After all, in 1997, Gordon Brown and Tony Blair surprised everyone with the move to make the Bank of England operationally independent, something that helped provide a solid base for a decade of strong, non-inflationary economic growth.
Maybe Reeves will offer us a similarly welcome revelation. She will probably have to enact the policy to impose VAT on private schools, even if implementation is delayed. Starmer said it would be done “straight away” if he won the election. Presumably the same goes for the non-doms and the complicated business of “carried interest” breaks for entrepreneurs. Reeves, too, will be a centre of close attention.
Quite rapidly, in other words, Labour will settle into government, and ministers will relish the chance to exercise their new powers. With so many of the Tory cabinet and old guard dispatched by the electorate, it won’t be long before Labour starts to look like a natural party of government. The contrast with a warring Tory party will be stark.
The sense of urgency will be real enough, but Starmer should also remind the country that he wants, and needs, time for his “decade of renewal” – 3,650 days or so. As the old saying goes: “The difficult we do immediately, the impossible takes a little longer.”
