A coded message?

A media round-up by the Labour List website today suggests that Starmer’s shake-up of his shadow cabinet confirms a further shift to the right—if that were possible. But on the same website today is an intriguing article by loyalist MP Dan Jarvis, which if I’m not mistaken sends a coded message to the leadership—grow a spine and take the Tories on—stop pussyfooting around tweaking Tory policies. Jarvis’s case rests on what to do about the water industry, which as he says has been bled dry (forgive the pun) by mainly overseas companies and loaded up with £60 billion in debt. He says 20% of our bills is to service the debt. How to tackle this crisis, which as reported today by the BBC is leading to multiple raw sewage overflow incidents, even in dry weather?

One answer is to tighten regulations, and I would say do so until the water companies cry for mercy and seek escape. As Jarvis suggests, this could make a future nationalisation cheaper. I may have mentioned this before, but years ago the owners of Yorkshire Water offered to gift the regulated part of the business to some sort of consumer co-operative. But in that case the message would be ‘don’t look a gift horse in the mouth’- this gift would have come laden with debt. Jarvis says ‘My expectation is that public ownership makes sense, can be done at reasonable cost and should happen sooner rather than later.’  To achieve this, ‘We lead and shape opinion rather than fearing and following it. With nationalisation already popular, there is huge opportunity here, and that calculation applies far beyond water – climate being a key example.’
 
I suspect for many Labour MPs, including some of those who may well be newly elected next year, Jarvis’s view will prevail. After their first few happy months with a new New Labour government, reality could kick in and radicalise them—a little. Perhaps some of them will be influenced by voices Starmer failed to purge. We live in hope.