SPEAKING from 10 Downing Street, newly elected Prime Minister Keir Starmer said that the country had voted “decisively for change” and “for national renewal and a return of politics to public service.” Neither claim could be further from the truth. 

Never has a government with so large a majority been elected less “decisively.” No claim to bring about change has rung hollower, though both governing parties have repeatedly made such claims to dissimulate the continuity of their common commitment to unpopular neoliberal policies. 

Starmer’s “responsible” manifesto promised very little to working people, while showering generous subsidies, low taxes, lucrative contacts and permissive deregulation on big corporations and the rich, both British and foreign. Promises of increased social spending are predicated on growth that is unlikely if neoliberalism prevails, and such social spending as is undertaken will involve contracting services out to greedy big corporations, as Wes Streeting, the new Health Secretary, has already indicated.