r/neoliberal • u/extraneous_parsnip Robert Caro • Jun 27 '24

Keir Starmer should be Britain’s next prime minister | The Economist endorses Labour for the first time since 2005 Opinion article (non-US)

https://www.economist.com/leaders/2024/06/27/keir-starmer-should-be-britains-next-prime-minister
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u/WAGRAMWAGRAM Jun 27 '24

How the fuck didn't they endorse them in 2010? Gordon Brown is literally a banker and saved the world.

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u/YouLostTheGame Rural City Hater Jun 27 '24 edited Jun 27 '24

Why not find out for yourself, pretty compelling arguments imo

https://archive.ph/9SxrF

But a prime minister should not get too much credit for climbing out of a hole he himself dug as chancellor. Chancellor Brown poured money into public services. As a result, Britain's budget deficit is almost as big as Greece's in proportion to its economy; its public sector is larger. This is a time-bomb of a legacy, and one that Mr Brown is ill equipped to defuse. The prime minister has tended to take the side of producers—especially the public-sector unions—rather than consumers. He frustrated some of Mr Blair's efforts to reform the health service and education and slowed down others once he became prime minister. There are mutterings about choice in Labour's manifesto, but Mr Brown too often reverts to old-fashioned statism. He has run a grim campaign (see Bagehot), scarcely bothering to defend his record and concentrating instead on scaring people about the Tories' plans. Above all, the government is tired. Mired in infighting and scandal, just as the Tories were in 1997, New Labour has run its course (see article). Some hope that a hung parliament would usher in a refashioning of the centre-left: a Mandelsoned and Milibanded party would arise. But it is better for the country that Labour has its looming nervous breakdown in opposition. A change of government is essential