A bit like the little boy in the old fairytale The Emperor’s New Clothes, who points out that the ruler is naked, sometimes someone says what everyone else is thinking but is too scared to express.
Rosie Duffield’s castigating letter to Keir Starmer certainly falls into this category, as she surgically dismembered what have been a dreadful first 10 weeks for the new Labour government with almost brutal glee.
Critics of the Canterbury MP – and there are many – will point out that she has been an outlier in the party for several years now, sitting on its fringes after her attacks on trans rights and her support for figures like JK Rowling made her a hero to some and a bigoted villain to others. Starmer was always in the latter camp in that debate.
There were constant rumours that Duffield might switch to the Tories. Certainly she was wooed, but she never crossed the floor, and the suggestion was always dismissed as another attempt to poison her reputation. In her resignation letter, she emphasises her union roots and her belief in social democracy, and questions whether the position of Starmer himself is more akin to Tory thinking.
It is absolutely fair to say that when she ran for Labour in July, she did so not exactly as a supporter of Starmer, or of what he stands for. However, anyone who feels the need to pile in to Duffield now because they want to defend Starmer should ask themselves this question: what would I say if this were a Tory MP resigning the whip because of the actions of a Tory government? If you did not demand that Natalie Elphicke stand down immediately and allow a by-election to take place, then you should probably hold your peace with Duffield.
Even taking into account the history of animosity, Duffield’s scorching attack says out loud what many Labour MPs are saying in dark corners, in hushed tones.
You can feel the “relief” she craves from the torturous months she has endured in Labour under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn and then Starmer, as sentence by sentence she pours out her pent-up fury and frustration at the state of the party and of this new government.
Anybody who attended the largely soulless and certainly cheerless Labour Party conference in Liverpool last week will know full well that her qualms, and her disappointment, are shared by many within the movement.
There are two strands to her attack, though, that will really hurt Starmer – the personal one, which exposes a void where political experience and belief should be; and the greater issue of what seem to be unjust policies contrasting with the prime minister’s acceptance of gifts.
On the first, Duffield quickly goes for Starmer’s throat. She notes: “As someone elevated immediately to a shadow cabinet position without following the usual path of honing your political skills on the back benches, you had very little previous political footprint. It was therefore unclear what your political passions, drive or direction might be as the leader of the Labour Party, a large movement of people united by a desire for social justice and support for those most in need.”
His apparent lack of a philosophy fits the profile of a man who “made the choice not to speak up once about the Labour Party’s problems with antisemitism during [his] time in the shadow cabinet”.
Then, on his lack of inspiring leadership skills, she adds: “Since you took office as leader of the opposition, you have used various heavy-handed management tactics but have never shown what most experienced backbenchers would recognise as true or inspiring leadership.”
As someone often portrayed by her critics as too right-wing for Labour, it is interesting that she singles out the “shameful treatment” of Diane Abbott by Starmer and his inner circle. She also makes clear what many despairing Labour MPs have admitted in private conversations on the issue of receiving expensive gifts.
“The revelations of hypocrisy have been staggering and increasingly outrageous. I cannot put into words how angry I and my colleagues are at your total lack of understanding about how you have made us all appear.
“The sleaze, nepotism and apparent avarice are off the scale. I am so ashamed of what you and your inner circle have done to tarnish and humiliate our once proud party.”
But it is the “cruel and unnecessary” policies that really irk her. Interestingly, the trans and women’s rights issues do not make an appearance, even though these are what initially sent Duffield into Labour purgatory.
Instead it is the cancellation of winter fuel payments for millions of pensioners, and the refusal to ease child poverty by lifting the two-child benefit cap, that she, like many others, is enraged by.
But when these policies are seen in the context of a prime minister and his senior ministerial team accepting expensive gifts of clothes, designer glasses, luxury apartments, and tickets to football matches and Taylor Swift concerts, it becomes too much.
Most damningly, she states: “Someone with far-above-average wealth choosing to keep the Conservatives’ two-child limit to benefit payments, which entrenches children in poverty, while inexplicably accepting expensive personal gifts of designer suits and glasses costing more than most of those people can grasp – this is entirely undeserving of holding the title of Labour prime minister.”
Duffield may be an embittered critic of Starmer, but the problem with this letter is that it is not landing in a void. It is being added to a cauldron of criticism and doubts about the new prime minister.
Worse still, over the last few days, whispers of the kind that dogged Rishi Sunak’s calamitous premiership have begun. Can Starmer survive? Will he be replaced? Who could be the next Labour prime minister? These questions are being asked because his position is coming into question.
It is certainly not too late for Starmer to turn this around. He has only just won power, and has a huge majority. But he has to take a grip of his government’s agenda, and wipe away the sleaze quickly. If he does that, Duffield’s letter will be forgotten, but if he fails, it will stand as a reference point for his growing number of critics, and a testament to a government that has failed to grasp the moment.
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