So, the long-awaited General Election is over, and the polls were confirmed as mostly correct; Labour are back in with a landslide victory among M.P.s.
However, there should still be real concern at the top of the Labour hierarchy at both the relatively low percentage of the vote gained by Labour and the low turnout.
Labour still needs to win people over
This was one of the strangest General Elections for many decades. It was what can perhaps best be described as a negative landslide, a landslide against the Tories, rather than one for Labour. Now, I accept that this may seem a strange thing to say, given that Labour have won a majority of over 170 seats and managed to take seats they had never taken before and even defeated a former Prime Minister in her hitherto very safe seat in Norfolk.
The fact is that Labour won its huge parliamentary majority with just 34% of the vote. Indeed, it has been pointed out that this is more than 5% less than Corbyn’s Labour achieved in 2017 when losing the election. It was also won on a low turnout of barely 60%, the lowest since 2001 and one of the lowest since Universal Suffrage was introduced about a hundred years ago. This was a vote against the Tories, far more than a vote for Labour.
As Guardian columnist Johnathan Freedland neatly put it on the day of Labour’s victory, Starmer has won the votes, but now needs to win over the people.
Labour needs to deliver for the North
In terms of seats, Labour did spectacularly well in North. In the North its ‘Red Wall’ was well and truly rebuilt, with Labour winning 47 seats, including all the seats that were lost in 2019 and seats such as Hexham and North Northumberland, which even eluded Blair in their landslide of 1997.
So, one the one hand, we can say that the North has delivered for Labour in 2024, but just looking at the electoral map can be deceptive, missing the large support for Reform UK. Labour comfortably held Sunderland Central for example, but the vote still included more than a quarter of voters (27%). Reform UK again got around a quarter of the vote in Hartlepool and just over a quarter of the vote in North Durham. Similar results were replicated in many seats across the Northeast and in the Northwest and Yorkshire as well. There is a clear warning here for Labour, that they must deliver real improvements for people.
I was pleased to see therefore, that Starmer seemed to strike the correct tone in his acceptance speech, with an emphasis on humility and service and reaching out to those who didn’t vote Labour. Among other things, Starmer said: “You have given us a clear mandate, and we will use it to deliver change. To restore service and respect to politics. End the era of noisy performance. Tread more lightly on your lives. And unite our country. Four nations standing together again. Facing down, as we have so often in our past, the challenges of an insecure world. Committed to a calm and patient rebuilding. So, with respect, and humility I invite you all to join this government of service, in the mission of national renewal. Our work is urgent, and we begin it today. Thank you very much.” This was a good start, and the right kind of language to use.
But of course, actions speak louder than words. As he has said himself, Starmer must govern for the whole country – and remember that that includes the North.
Delivering for the whole country
There are many areas in which Labour need to deliver for the whole country, but where the need for delivery is particularly great in the North.
The last Labour government was on its way to just about eradicating child poverty, but that positive trend has, like so many others, been reversed in the last 14 grim years. This is a problem which is particularly serious in parts of London – and the North. It was noted in 2022 that Newcastle had the highest levels of absolute child poverty in the Northeast at a shocking 22.1%, while the Northeast average was 20.5%, 4.6% higher than England as a whole, excluding London. Levels of child poverty of any kind are even higher, over 40% in Newcastle for example.
NHS
Similarly, Labour needs to deliver in terms of the NHS, with waiting lists for important operations, getting longer and longer. It was noted in September 2023 that, “the waiting list for hospital treatment rose to a record of nearly 7.8 million in September 2023. The 18-week treatment target has not been met since 2016.” The NHS needs help, investment and support throughout the UK. There can be no doubt about that. However, the health situation is particularly dire in our own Northeast.
In 2021 it was reported “the health and wellbeing gap between the North East and the rest of England remains significant for many health indicators, including life expectancy which is closely related to area level deprivation and socioeconomic status. Within the North East the gap in life expectancy at birth between the least and most deprived areas is 12.2 years in males and 9.7 years in females. A third of the population live in areas of relative high deprivation (in the 20% of most deprived areas of England). Employment, as well as good quality and fair work that reduces in-work poverty, are major drivers of overall health and wellbeing. However, employment rates in the region continue to be lowest in the country, as is the median average for weekly earnings. The proportion of children both in relative and absolute low-income families is highest in the country and increasing.”
The incoming Labour government must deliver in terms of improving health indicators and start to solve some of the underlying problems around deprivation, in the Northeast and across the North.
Education
Another area where the Labour government needs to deliver is in education. The education system is broken across the country, fragmented into dysfunctional pieces, whilst teachers have long voted with their feet, by leaving teaching in droves, with a third of new teachers leaving within five years of joining the profession.
As for the North, as in health, it is also lagging is in education. It was reported in August 2022 that the key takeaway from that summer’s GCSE and A-level results was that “the attainment gap in grades achieved by students in the South versus those in the North is growing.” Furthermore, with regards to our own Northeast, that for grade 7 passes at GCSE (equivalent to an A mark), the difference between the Northeast and London had increased from 9.3 percentage points in 2019 to 10.2 in 2022. Again, Labour must deliver for the North in terms of education. Perhaps having an Education Secretary form the region who comes from a humble background will help, but so would a more flexible curriculum, more relevant to pupils form the Northeast as outlined here .
Delivering for the North
One way that Labour could deliver for the North is through working constructively with the elected Northern mayors, all of whom bar one is of course Labour. This could include developing pilot schemes in conjunction with the elected mayors to develop more radical solutions, the kind of which are needed in the North, in the policy areas outlined above.
Labour must also revisit the so-called Crossrail for the North idea for high-speed rail across the North. It should only take two hours to travel from Newcastle to Liverpool by train, via major cities, such as York, Leeds, Bradford and Manchester. Whilst I can see this would be a long-term aim, I would like to think that a Labour government would start to build this much needed link and other important public transport links before this decade is over.
Here in the Northeast, we have now waited 40 years for a Just Transition, after the Miners’ Strike and the decimation of other major industries such as iron and steel and shipbuilding. Surely the time has finally come, as we move towards a carbon neutral economy. Let us finally have the good, well-paid green jobs to replace those lost 40 years ago and give our young people some hope. And as for Levelling Up, Labour must make it real and not just a shallow slogan. It is now hands of a Northerner, in the form of Angela Rayner and so we can at least hope…
Finally, and key to all this, Labour must abandon the Treasury’s Green Book, which rigs investment against the North, by concentrating on short-term gain for investment so favouring the South and finally rewrite the Barnett Formula, which has held the North back for so long.
Labour must repay the faith shown in them
Labour must repay the faith shown in them by so many voters across the Northeast and indeed the wider North. We should wish Starmer well ,but be vigilant and watch for evidence of real change, especially for the long-suffering people of the Northeast and the wider North.
